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COLLECTANEA 
THOMAS CARLYLE 



This book has been printed from type as follows: 
500 copies on Old Stratford paper. 
125 copies on Van Gelder paper. 
15 copies on Imperial Japan paper. 



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2Z£^ 



COLLECTANEA 



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182t-J855 



"For the whole, as it consisteth of 
parts; so without all the parts it is not 
whole; and to make it absolute, is re- 
quired not only the parts, but such parts 
as are true." 

— Ben Jonson. Explorata.. 



EDITED BY 

SAMUEL ARTHUR JONES 




CANTON PENNSYLVANIA 



MCM III 



C4 



^ ^ 



Two Co! •»? Hereived 

JUL 26 1904 

^ Cooyrlght Entrv 

d.£^ - M- ~ / a ^ 3 

CLASS CC xXc. No. 
COPY B 



Copyright, 1903, 
By Lewis Buddy III 



To 

Dewitt Miller, the Bibliotaph, 

a.nd 

Paul Lemperly, the Bibliophile, 

with thanks beyond words. 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE 

These writings of Thomas Carlyle were contributed to the 
"New Edinburgh Review," October, I82I; April, 1822. The 
London "Athenaeum," January, 1837. The "Examiner," Sep- 
tember, 1840. "Eraser's Magazine," May, 1849. The London 
"Athenaeum," The London "Times," November, 1855, and have 
been hitherto uncollected. 

Three of these have escaped the bibliographers entirely; the 
Review of Heintze's "Selections," "Indian Meal," and the 
" Letter to the Times." 



CONTENTS 

PREFATORY NOTE ix 

METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED CHARACTERS 17 

FAUSTUS 57 

FAUST'S CURSE . 93 

HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION OF BURNS 97 

INDIAN MEAL 107 

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES 117 

APPENDIX 

CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 127 

vii 



PREFATORY NOTE 

It provokes a smile at the expense of the critics 
to learn, and by his own confession, that Thomas 
Carlyle is enrolled in the Grand Army of 'rejected 
contributors.' Looking back at the battle he had 
fought and won, he wrote: "It must be owned that 
my first entrances into glorious 'Literature' were 
abundantly stinted and painful; but a man does 
enter if, with a small gift, he persist; and perhaps 
it is no disadvantage if the door be several times 
slammed in his face as a salutary preliminary." 
Twice, at least, was the door slammed in his face 
before Dr. Brewster (not yet "Sir David") gave him 
an allotment of hack-work on the "Edinburgh 
Encyclopaedia;" but the Fates had determined 
that Thomas Carlyle should 'persist,' for he was 
to be "a writer of books." 

He was gifted with what Goldsmith calls 'a knack 
of hoping,' but the gloomy Scotch scholar him- 
self christened his faculty 'desperate hope.' He 
could also 'toil terribly;' and in tenacity of pur- 
pose he was as indomitable as Robert Bruce. 
Given such qualities, together with no 'small gift,' 
and the very natural outcome is the thirty-four 
octavo volumes labelled The Collected Writings 
of Thomas Carlyle* 

Why add another book to that long list? He 
did not see fit to resurrect the 'prentice-work 

ix 



PREFATORY NOTE 

which for nearly fifty years had been 'decently 
interred ' in the forgotten pages of booksel- 
ler Waugh's soon bankrapH "New Edinburgh 
Magazine ." But these discarded children of his 
younger days are legitimate, though ill-favored, 
and they also have a significant value for the stu- 
dent of Literature as illustrating the development 
of the Ecclefechan stonemason's son into a verita- 
ble Man of Letters. 

Carlyle was in the twenty-sixth year of his age 
when he wrote his review of Joanna Baillie's 
"Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters ," yet 
was he then but trying his wings — if not as timid- 
ly, at least as awkwardly as a new-fledged bird. 
The strong pinions that enabled one "Diogenes 
Teufelsdrockh" to soar from the attic of his abode 
in the Wahngasse beyond the very stars are not at 
all discernible in Miss Baillie's callow but confi- 
dent critic. Carlyle now takes rank with De Quin- 
cey in the scope and luxuriance of his vocabulary; 
in J 82 1 his slender stock of synonymes is all too 
apparent, and his style (which he has yet to find) is 
even uncouth in its irregularities: nevertheless, 
there are gleams and glimpses of half-felicities that 
give promise of better things, 'if he persist.' 

As a workman and at the same age Carlyle was 
by no means so facile as Lowell, but his earliest 
attempt at deliberate criticism reveals a degree 
of independent judgement to which the author 



PREFATORY NOTE 

of the Biglow Papers had not then attained . 
Carlyle never worshipped the idols of the forum, 
the theatre, or the market-place. He passed his 
own pronouncement, sturdily as his out-spoken 
father would have done, upon the poetical plati- 
tudes of Joanna Baillie regardless of the shower of 
adulation which drenched that most renowned 
and 'respectable' of rhyming spinsters. Time has 
justified his findings and it was easy for Mrs. Oli- 
phant, in J 882, to make her summing-up so com- 
pletely in accord with his piece of 'prentice-work 
honestly and fearlessly done some sixty years be- 
fore — and then against the full tide of general 
opinion. Sir Walter Scott, 'Apollo's venal son,' 
was found lacking in either Carlyle's capability of 
sound judgement or in the courage to exercise it. 
In the introduction to the third canto of M^r^ 
mion, Scott made such a slip as this: 

. . . the wild harp, which silent hung 
By silver Avon's sylvan shore, 
'Till twice an hundred years rolled o'er; 
When she, the bold Enchantress, came 
With fearless hand and heart on flame ! 
From the pale willow snatched the treasure, 
And swept it with a kindred measure, 
'Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove 
With Montford's hate and Basil's love. 
Awakening at the inspired strain. 
Deemed their own Shakspeare lived again. 

After such a tinkling drizzle from the font of 
Castalay one feels that Byron's sneer at the 'pros- 

xi 



PREFATORY NOTE 

tituted muse' is not without the extenuating prov- 
ocation. 

Bailie Waugh's obscure critic was a better judge 
of poetical poultry than Avon's simple swans or 
even Sir Walter himself, and the raw recruit whom 
the dazzling sheen of Waugh's guineas had tempt- 
ed to mount the critic's tripod did not hesitate to 
fly in the face of "those qualified to judge" — such 
are Miss Baillie's own words — whose unstinted 
and intemperate praise had fully persuaded the 
fertile female rhymster that, verily, her lips had 
been touched with fire from the altar. 

The clear sanity of Carlyle's very first uncen- 
sured criticism is noteworthy; for an unknown 
scribbler in a moribund magazine who does not 
mistake the eau sucre of Sentimentality for the 
dew of Helicon is a phenomenon as rare as it is 
indicative. 

"The first literary use to which Carlyle turned 
his knowledge of German was in the writing of his 
"Life of Schiller." ... He had indeed written 
an article on Faust before this date {Neiv Edin." 
burgh Re-viem), April J822), but it is a compara- 
tively crude production, and Carlyle did not con- 
sider it worthy of a place in his Collected Works." 

Thus writes one of the most loving and pains- 
taking of editors; but doth not the small boy who 
has had the 'luck' to hook monsters after long and 
patient angling throw away the little minnows 

xii 



PREFATORY NOTE 

(that he had accepted gladly in the morning) to 
display his prowess in his larger game ? Are we 
not all boys of a larger and not always a wiser 
growth ? 

Judged at this late day, it may be regarded as "a 
comparatively crude production" — but, in April 
J 822? It is doubtful if at that period there were 
six men in Great Britain who knew of Goethe's 
"Faust" — if, indeed, there were any other than the 
son of James Carlyle who had read it as discern- 
ingly. At a time when English Literature in- 
cludes all manner of ineptitudes christened 
"Translations" of Goethe's opus maximus it is 
not difficult to despise the day of small begin- 
nings. As the product of a young man who began 
the study of German only two years previously, it 
is a somewhat rare 'crudity.' 

The rhymed rendering of "Faust's Curse" was 
published ten years later and of it Carlyle wrote 
in his Diary: "Last Friday saw my name in large 
letters at the 'Athenaeum' office in Catherine 
Street, Strand; hurried on with downcast eyes as 
if I had seen myself in the pillory." 

That terrifying spectacle to be seen at the Athe- 
naeum office was "Faust's Curse," which hung 
printed there : such a rarity was that famous im- 
precation in the year of Grace, J 832 — ten years 
after the publication of Carlyle's first 'compara- 
tively crude production.' 

xiii 



PREFATORY NOTE 

Carlyle's review of Heintze's translation of Burns 
was a labor of love done for the usually-impecuni- 
ous and always-improvident Leigh Hunt, then 
writing and publishing his "Examiner." It was 
only eight years since Carlyle had written the 
rhymed translation of "Faust's Curse" which 'hung 
printed' in the Athenaeum office, but he was now 
the renowned author of "The French Revolution. 
A History."; the despised "Sartor Resartus" had 
been published as a book in America — edition 
following edition with unwonted celerity — and 
even his "Essays" had been collected and publish- 
ed by the esurient 'Yankees:' Eraser being obli- 
ged to import sheets thereof in J 839 to meet the 
English demand, and in the next year (again com- 
pelled by the rapid sale thereof) to republish the 
"Essays" himself. Carlyle had also protested that 
Emerson had been too unsparing of the capital 
letters without which the perfervid Scotchman 
could not satisfactorily express himself; so they 
were restored in the English reissue. Eraser craft- 
ily called it the " Second Edition," as if the honor 
of preparing the first had been due to the demand 
of Carlyle's British readers. All this, in the ex- 
pressive slang of the stable, enabled the struggling 
Scotchman to 'feel his oats,' — and feel them he 
surely did; for he "wor on the rampage, Pip" when 
he wrote "Chartism"(J840). 

"Burn's songs have a tune, so as few or rather 
xiv 



PREFATORY NOTE 

as no modern songs we know of have. Every 
thought, every turn of phrase, sings itself; the 
tune modulates it all, shapes it as a soul does the 
body it is to dwell in. The tune is always the soul 
of a song, in this sense; that is to say, provided 
the song be a true song, and have any soul." 

When the editor read this he felt that the dic- 
tum should not be left in the neglected pages of a 
little-known extinct magazine. 

How many of the millions of British readers 
("mostly fools") were aware that the spectacle of 
Carlyle on Oli'ver CromTvett was soon followed 
by that of Carlyle on "Indian Meal!" 

It is often urged that Carlyle spent his strength 
in finding the fault rather than in providing the 
remedy: the forgotten paper in "Frasier's Maga- 
zine" will prove a revelation to many. He had 
bestirred himself in behalf of famine-stricken Ire- 
land even before he had made his journey thither 
to learn, if he could, the secret of her troubles and 
to find the remedy therefor. Although he did 
say that the cure would be to 'submerge the whole 
island for twenty-four hours,' he had the sympa- 
thetic tear on his face even while the grim jest 
was on his lips. 

Alas! Even "Indian corn" in all the prodigal 
profusion of nature may serve to disconcert the 
'Malthusian fling,' still it is not the panacea for 
Ireland's "curse of eight hundred years." 

The reader who is curious to learn how Carlyle 

XV 



PREFATORY NOTE 

gathered his material and moulded it to his pur- 
pose can be gratified by consulting the Carlyle- 
Emerson correspondence as edited by Professor 
Norton: Letters cxxxviii, cxxxix, cxl, ccxii, cxlii. 
In his "Autobiography," Leigh Hunt, who had 
long been Carlyle's near neighbor, wrote: 

"I believe that what Mr. Carlyle loves better 
than his fault-finding, with all its eloquence, is the 
face of any human creature that looks suffering, 
and loving and sincere; and I believe further, that 
if the fellow-creature were suffering only, and 
neither loving nor sincere, but had come to a pass 
of agony in this life, which put him at the mercy 
of some good man for some last help and conso- 
lation towards his grave, even at the risk of loss 
to repute, and a sure amount of pain and vexa- 
tion, that man, if the groan reached him in its 
forlornness, would be Thomas Carlyle." 

The "Letter to the Editor of the Times" — 
which the Rev. Alexander Napier found in the 
"Athenaeum" and has fitly embalmed in his 
edition of "Boswell's Life of Johnson," — is touch- 
ingly corroborative. Leigh Hunt's testimony and 
the pious and searching enthusiasm of the "Let- 
ter to the Times" are commended to the consid- 
eration of every reviler of the memory of the son 
of James and Margaret Carlyle. 

The editor begs leave to state that he has not 

deemed it proper to alter the punctuation of 

Carlyle's original printed text. 

S. A. J. 

Ann Arbor, I2thofJuIy, 1902. 

xvi 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED 
CHARACTERS 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED 
CHARACTERS^ 

[^Nco) Edinburgh Re'uie'V}, October, 1 82 1.] 

Miss Baillie has long enjoyed a large tribute of 
public favor; and the powers she possesses are no 
doubt fully sufficient to vindicate her claims to it. 
Yet, if we mistake not, this distinction has been 
earned more by the display of intellectual super- 
iority in general, than of eminent poetical genius; 
more by the avoidance of great blemishes, than 
the production of great beauties. Her poetry rare- 
ly belongs to the higher departments of the art; 
she deals little in the exhibition of sublime emo- 
tions — whether of an energetic or a tender cast; her 
store of imagery, her range of feeling, are both 
circumscribed; and though her studies have been 
professedly devoted, with an exclusive preference, 
to the workings of passion and the various aspects 
of human character, it is only with passions and 
characters of a common stamp that she appears to 
be completely successful. Her tragic portraits are 
certainly, in some cases, strongly sketched; yet in 
general they are nothing more than sketches, and 

^ Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters. 

By Joanna Baillie, London, I82I. 

19 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

sketches too by one who has observed rather than 
felt, — who has seen the effects produced by great 
conjunctures and surprising emergences, but who 
has little power to conceive the actual being of an 
impassioned spirit subjected to their influence. 

From this cause it follows, that, in Miss Baillie's 
dramas, the characteristic lineaments of her heroes 
are educed — if educed at all — rather by the man- 
agement of external situations, than by the direct 
expression of internal consciousness; rather by the 
display of actions, than the collision of feelings 
manifesting themselves naturally in the progress 
of the dialogue. With great inventive powers, 
indeed, something impressive may possibly be 
accomplished, even in this less poetic method: 
but invention is not a quality in which Miss Baillie 
particularly excels; and hence her management of 
those untoward instruments she employs is not 
always the most felicitous. 

These original deficiencies, important enough in 
themselves, have been enhanced, and rendered 
prominent, by Miss Baillie's mode of composition. 
Her performances have too much the appearance 
of forethought and plan, to pass for any relatives 
of nature; we find abundance of criticism and logic 
in them, but too little of genuine peptic fervour; 
and the project of producing two plays, a tragedy 
and a comedy, on each of the passions, not only 
had something mechanical in it, something very 
alien to the spontaneous inspiration which poets 
boast of, but also tended to render her characters 

20 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

too abstract and uncompounded to excite much 
interest. The beings wrought out on such a system 
are apt to resemble personifications rather than 
persons; they must hate, or envy, or love; and an 
author, in his anxiety to make them do so, with 
sufficient energy to give effect, is in danger of for- 
getting that they have anything to do besides. 
Much ingenuity, and much vividness of conception 
may be evinced in this manner, as Godwin and 
others have exemplified; but it is not thus, we 
imagine, that deep feeling will be awakened in a 
reader, or any character brought forward, that 
shall have much chance to dwell on his memory. 
In a word, we may think them to be very amiable 
or very detestable, but we do not feel them to be 
men. It is true, but Miss Baillie's plays are not all 
liable, in the same, or in any eminent degree, to 
this objection; but in all of them its force may be 
discovered more or less distinctly, and never with- 
out great injury to the result. 

With such weighty drawbacks, it is sufficiently 
clear that our author has no title to rank among 
the first class of poets. But it is equally so, we 
readily admit, that she possesses gifts enough to 
raise her far above the lowest: nor should it be 
forgotten, that, as her pretentions are much less 
urgent than her merits, so if she has fallen short 
of the highest excellence, our censure of her fail- 
ure should be less marked than our commenda- 
tion of her partial success. But, independently of 
such claims to indulgence, an attentive reader can- 

21 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

not avoid being struck with the many beauties that 
are scattered over her writings. She cannot be 
compared with our older dramatists. Basil and 
Ethwall are not known to us like Othello and 
Macbeth; they do not incorporate themselves with 
our thoughts and become part of the mind's 
household goods; but, though incomplete and 
unequal as dramatic characters, they bear traces 
of keen observation and energetic feeling, accom- 
panied at times with a strength of conception — 
which, if it had extended over the general surface 
of those poems — comprising the exalted, as it 
often does the common mental condition of the 
agent, would have amply contradicted our pre- 
vious criticisms. Nor is the effect of those intrinsic 
qualities obstructed by a depraved taste or a faulty 
style. The allusions and metaphors are always 
pure, often at once expressive and picturesque ; 
while the language in which they are clothed, is 
formed on the best models, and exhibits those 
beauties to the greatest advantage. 

In her less distinguished productions, the same 
fundamental excellencies, though more sparingly 
developed, are still discernible. 

There is a frank and vigorous air about her poet- 
ry, which pleases by seeming to perform all that it 
attempts. She has an acute relish for the simple 
affections of humanity, and the simple aspects of 
nature; and occasionally, there are thrills of wild 
sublimity, — which, as they rise without violence 
from the surrounding emotions, give dignity and 

22 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

relief to their unpretending beauties. Indeed, it is 
this unpretendingness, this utter want of affecta- 
tion, which constitutes the redeeming quality of 
Miss Baillie's writings. Be the subject high or low, 
she seems as if she were completely mistress of it; 
or at least, she avoids all unnatural expedients, and 
goes quietly along her destined course — indifferent 
to success, if it cannot be purchased without the 
sacrifice of truth and moderation. 

Good and evil are always mixed. It is probably 
by the undue cultivation of her reasoning faculties, 
that Miss Baillie has enfeebled the imaginative 
vigour of her poetry; and by the same process, 
no less probably, she has also imparted to it this 
unaffected simplicity, its principal ornament. To 
the same cause must likewise be ascribed, at least 
in part, the tone of wholesome, honest feeling, 
which pervades all her writings, and so agreeably 
distinguishes them, in an age when poetry is de- 
formed by a spirit of morbid exaggeration, the 
more baneful, as its tendency is to inspire disrespect 
or disgust for everything that is peaceable or 
happy in the ordinary ways of men. In Miss 
Baillie's writings, if we fail to meet with glowing, 
yet faithful exhibitions of perturbed and subli- 
mated feelings, we also fail to meet with the reck- 
less wailings, the bitter execrations of existing 
institutions, the cold derision of human nature, 
and the meretricious charms, not more dazzling 
than pernicious, which so deeply infect much of 
our present literature. In the absence of heroes, 

23 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

we are not presented with ruffians, decked out in 
colours which embellish rather than conceal their 
villainy; if we have less impetuous sentiment, 
what we have is all genuine; it does not array 
itself in oriential gorgeousness, it does not languish 
in diseased melancholy, or rave in the frenzy of 
despair, — but moves calmly and steadily along in 
cheerful comeliness, and the heart is better for it. 
Miss Baillie, in short, though not a great poet, is 
in every sense a good one. 

With such impressions of Miss Baillie's powers, 
and such dispositions to like, if not to admire, any 
thing proceeding from her pen, we expected to re- 
ceive more delight from the present volume than 
a perusal of it has actually afforded us. At first 
view, the title "Metrical Legends of Exalted Char- 
acters" suggests the idea of an undertaking emi- 
nently calculated to give room for the introduc- 
tion of much striking description, and much 
delightful, as well as highly valuable sentiment. 
Though poetry is an imaginative art, its produc- 
tions must be founded on reality in some sense, 
or they cannot yield us gratification. The ancient 
critical precept, that every drama should have for 
its groundwork some historical or credited event, 
was not without a show of reason; for although 
the imagination may be filled, and the heart touch- 
ed, as modern experience has frequently proved, 
by events and characters purely fictitious, yet still 
there is a hankering after truth in all of us; and the 
idea that what we are contemplating did actually 

24 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

in part take place, and for aught we know, in 
whole — that the characters before us were in fact 
real inhabitants of this earth, creatures of flesh and 
blood like ourselves, adds a wonderful vivacity to 
our impressions, at the time we receive them. The 
most hardened novel reader is now and then as- 
sailed by a chilling qualm, even at the very nodus 
of his story, on reflecting that all this mighty stir 
around him is but a fantasy; and though he strives 
to banish such suggestions, they return upon him 
when the intoxication is over, and never return 
without a sensible diminution of his pleasure. No 
doubt this disadvantage must continue to be quiet- 
ly submitted to; the real occurrences of the world 
are too circumscribed and prosaic to give scope to 
our full energies; and it is a grand privilege possess- 
ed by us, that we can at will frame an ideal scene, 
where all shall be fair and free, where the passions 
and powers of our nature may be arranged, and set 
in opposition, and developed as we choose, while 
things without us offer no obstruction to our crea- 
tive efforts. But if this shadowy world delights us 
merely as it seems to afford space for the unre- 
strained exertion of human will, the effect must 
depend on our belief, however transient, of its real- 
ity; and hence, if cases should occur, in which the 
restraints alluded to were wanting in a great meas- 
ure, and might be removed entirely without vio- 
lating, not the transient, but the permanent belief 
we have of their reality, the effect of such cases 
would be more intense, and therefore more poet- 

25 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

ical. Now "exalted characters" furnish just such 
cases as we have supposed. They are men in whom 
the low elements of humanity are feeble or almost 
extinct; and the poet has no task to perform with 
regard to them, but to present their mind, and 
such of their actions as unfold it, full and luminous 
before us, with all the colouring and accompani- 
ments which his art can lend. From their very 
nature, characters and events susceptible of this 
treatment must be rare; and the student of history 
who wishes to enlarge his heart, and extend his 
compass of thought, as well as to store his mem- 
ory with facts, may justly regret their being so. A 
historical personage, depicted in the colours of 
poetry, is like a bright sun-spot in the grey cold 
twilight of ordinary narrative. Richard and Wal- 
lenstein are no longer the thin shadows they appear- 
ed to us, in the mirror of Holinshed and Harte ; they 
are living men, with all their attributes, whom we 
almost seem to know personally; and the new in- 
terest we take in them is extended to the whole 
groups in which they mingle. No one can read 
the meagerest chronicle of our old French wars, 
without finding a warmer glow spread over all the 
scene, a more intimate presence in it, communica- 
ted from the plays of Shakespeare. In Henry's 
army we discover wellknown faces; the king and 
his valiant captains, even the ancient Pistol and 
Bardolph, "a soldier firm of heart," are all dear to 
our memories. We follow the progress of the host, 
as it were with our eyes; and hear the armourers 

26 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

give "dreadful note of preparation," every time the 
victory of Agincourt is mentioned to us. Nor is 
the increased animation which this particular spe- 
cies of poetry diffuses over the most striking pas- 
sages of history, the only, or even the principal ad- 
vantage we derive from it. Besides ministering to 
our pleasure, it contributes to our improvement. 
If history is valuable, chiefly, as it offers examples 
by which human nature is illustrated, and human 
conduct may be regulated, then it is of the highest 
importance that such great characters as have in- 
fluenced the destinies of men, be held up to us in 
the degree of light that shall most powerfully elicit 
the generous expansion of soul, which a view of 
them is fitted to inspire. We cannot feel too 
strongly the admiration of highly-gifted virtue, or 
the fear of highly-gifted wickedness; and if poetry 
profess to occupy a more exalted rank in the scale 
of our pursuits than that of being merely an ele- 
gant amusement, — if it profess to elevate our 
nature by giving scope to its higher qualities, and 
communicating new beauty to the ordinary things 
around us, — we do not see how it can better vin- 
dicate such claims, than by adorning the memory 
of those our illustrious brethren who have journey- 
ed through life in might and recitude before us. 
Every time the poet can seize the impress of such 
a character, and transmit it warm to our bosoms, 
he performs not only the most delightful but the 
most beneficial function of his art. He rescues 
from obscurity or neglect a token of the dignity of 

27 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

man; and thus presenting another high example, 
to which we may appeal in the day of trial, he 
enriches and exalts the moral treasury of our race. 
With regard to the illustrious wicked, poetical 
representation is profitable in this way likewise. 
The spectacle of mental power tends to enlarge 
the mind of him who beholds it; and what is more, 
the penalties attached to its misemployment the 
"compunctious visitings" of conscience, or its still 
more frightful insensibility, form a lesson of awful 
import, which it is fit that all of us should study. 
When a poet converts our admiration of greatness 
into admiration of the crimes it is employed to 
effect, he does not use, but abuse his authority 
over us, and our feelings refuse to obey him. True 
poetry will have another aim. Filippo and Mac- 
beth are not less instructive than Brutus or Virgin- 
ius. If this reasoning be correct, the increase of 
pleasure and profit, derived from this species of 
poetry, must appear to be great and indubitable. At 
the same time, however, like every earthly good, it 
is mixed with some alloy. The poet cannot secure 
to us those advantages, without invading and appar- 
ently violating the province of the historian and bi- 
ographer. Poetryandhistoryhave long been at issue 
on this matter. There is a kind of debatable ground 
between them, the limits of which are nothing like 
ascertained, and where each lays claim to the right 
of dominion. On one hand, the sticklers for ac- 
curacy allege, that, by distorting the events, and ex- 
aggerating the characters of former ages, the face 

28 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

of history becomes disfigured in the imaginations 
of men; and erroneous notions thus silently propa- 
gated, must inevitably, though imperceptibly, viti- 
ate the conclusions and inferences to be deduced 
from the real course of things, which has now been 
displaced in a great measure from our thoughts, 
to make room for a series more splendid, invented 
by the poet for a purpose altogether foreign. 

On the other hand are set forth the manifold ad- 
vantages enumerated above, and the narrow com- 
pass to which the injury complained of is limited. 
The poet, it is said, will never violate the truth of 
history to any important extent, as he is in general 
sufficiently restrained by considerations affecting 
his own pursuits alone. He knows well enough 
that no subject over which the full daylight of his- 
tory has once been shed, and which has thus be- 
come familiar in all its details, and settled in the 
public mind, can by any management be rendered 
a fit subject for poetry. His efforts will, therefore, 
be chiefly directed to the more obscure and re- 
mote departments of history, concernin wghich 
little can be known, or at least is known, to con- 
tradict his statements; and in those distant scenes, 
if he find a few facts applicable to his purpose, 
why, it is asked, should he not be permitted, nay 
invited, to seize them ? For the great characters 
there dimly shadowed forth, he becomes a kind of 
new creator. The faint traces they have left re- 
main uninterpreted and barren in the eyes of the 
chronicler: to the poet's eye they are like the frag- 

29 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

ments of an antediluvian animal, as contemplated 
by the mind of a Cuvier — dark to others and void 
of meaning, but discovering to his experienced sa- 
gacity, the form and habits of a species long ex- 
tinct. And if, by a similar power, the plastic and 
far-sighted genius of a poet, can, from those slen- 
der hints, detect the structure and essence of the 
sublime character to whom they relate, why should 
he not disclose it, and thus offer to us a mass of ex- 
alted thoughts and noble feelings, which, but for 
such a power, we should never have recovered 
from the darkness that buried them ? Let the poet, 
then, say his admirers, take what liberty he pleases 
with history. For his own sake, he will avoid falsi- 
fying the characters and transactions recorded 
there, to any fatal degree ; because long before it 
prove hurtful to the moral judgements of his audi- 
ence, this proceeding will prove still more hurtful 
to the effect of his poetry, which will in vain solicit 
favour from minds that are revolted by an open 
contradiction of what they know to be true. 

We do not pretend to settle this controversy; but 
we cannot help observing, that the advocates for 
history seem to overrate their claim of damages. 
No one, it is certain, is likely to recur to the pages 
of a drama or an epic for settling a date or a dis- 
puted fact; and for all moral purposes, the poetical 
selection of circumstances may convey as faithful 
an idea of the subject treated, as the historical 
narrative in which every circumstance is minutely 
detailed. The truth of historical characters is in- 

30 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

deed a more grave consideration; but the force and 
vividness of the delineation are also an important 
particular, and the omission of some circumstances 
which enfeeble the general result, rather than 
change its nature, has as many ad\antages, and 
gives such a powerful engine for poetry to impress 
us with, at once delightfully and beneficially, that 
considerable latitude ought to be allowed even 
here. Miss Baillie is aware of those conflicting 
rights, and is puzzled, like ourselves, how to recon- 
cile them. Admitting that history is too indistinct, 
and biography too minute and familiar to call forth 
"that rousing and generous admiration which the 
"more simple and distant view of heroic worth is 
"fitted to inspire;" she conceives that romance in 
verse or prose, "by throwing over the venerated 
"form of a majestic man, a gauzy veil, on which is 
"delineated the fanciful form of an angel," is no 
less injurious than unfaithful to the memory of the 
mighty dead. She proceeds, 

"Having this view of the subject in my mind, 
and a great desire, notwithstanding, to pay some 
tribute to the memory of a few characters for 
whom I felt a peculiar admiration and respect, I 
have ventured upon what may be considered, in 
some degree, as a new attempt, — to give a short 
descriptive chronicle of those noble beings, whose 
existence has honoured human nature and bene- 
fitted mankind. 

"In relating a true story, though we do not add 
any events or material circumstances to it, and 

31 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

abstain from attributing any motives for action 
which have not been credibly reported, or may not 
be fairly inferred, yet, how often do we spontan- 
eously, almost unwittingly, add description similar 
to what we know must have belonged to the 
actors and scenery of our story? 

"In imitation then of this human propensity, 
from which we derive so much pleasure, though 
mischievous, when not indulged with charity and 
moderation I have written the following metrical 
legends, describing such scenes as truly belong to 
my story, with occasionally the feelings, figures, 
and gestures of those whose actions they relate, 
and also assigning their motives of action, as they 
may naturally be supposed to have existed. 

"The events they record are taken from sources 
sufficiently authentic; and where anything has 
been reasonably questioned, I give some notice of 
the doubt. I have endeavored to give them with 
the brief simplicity of a chronicle, though frequent- 
ly stopping in my course, where occasion for re- 
flection or remark naturally offered itself, or pro- 
ceeding more slowly, when objects capable of 
interesting or pleasing description tempted me to 
linger. Though my great desire has been to dis- 
play such portraitures of real worth and noble her- 
oism as might awaken high and generous feelings 
in a youthful mind; yet I have not, as far as I know, 
imputed to my heroes motives or sentiments be- 
yond what their noble deeds do fairly warrant. I 
have made each legend short enough to be read 

32 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

in one moderate sitting, that the impression might 
be undivided, and that the weariness of a story, 
not varied or enriched by minuter circumstances, 
might be, if possible, avoided. It has, in short, 
been my aim to produce sentimental and descrip- 
tive memorials of exalted worth." 

The disadvantages of this plan are too obvious 
to require much discussion. A versified chronicle, 
confined within the rigid limits of historical truth, 
is evidently one of the most unpoetical things in 
nature. And although the degree of licence which 
forms the discriminating feature of these metrical 
legends may admit to introducing much fine de- 
scription, both of scenery and feeling, yet for the 
main purpose, that of exhibiting a great character 
in glowing colours, and impressing us with it 
strongly, few things could be worse calculated 
than this new species of poem. "With heroic char- 
acters, especially, we think it would fail in the 
very best hands; and with any character, it is 
plainly impossible that it should ever become the 
vehicle of high poety. It leaves no room for 
invention, little for imagination, except of a low 
kind, partly allowed even in prose: there can be no 
unity of action, for no man's life was ever in whole 
directed to a single object; hence no unity of in- 
terest, no unity of result. These disadvantages 
are palpable enough. "What compensation do we 
get for them ? If the truth of the narrative be all 
our compensation, it is a very poor one. Granting 
the narrative to be true in every particular — we 

33 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

ask, of what avail is it? We did not take it up for 
historical information, but to obtain a sublime 
view of mental greatness. The fact of a hero's 
life are worth nothing to us except as they repre- 
sent the powers of his mind; and so the latter be 
displayed with the greatest truth and effect, the 
former may be as they will. Does Miss Baillie 
think a straggling narrative of a man's whole life 
and conversation the best mode of presenting an 
intense and faithful view of his character? We im- 
agine, on the contrary, it would not be difficult to 
prove, that, for exhibiting the character in all its 
truth and completeness, it must frequently be ad- 
visable to alter, always more than advisable to 
concentrate, the events which have displayed it. 
We say truth, and we meant to use the term in its 
highest sense. The actions of a man are never 
more than a feeble and imperfect emblem of what 
is passing within. To a common mind they dis- 
play little of the unseen movements which a 
sympathising mind infers from their presence; and 
to any mind they offer but a faint copy of the re- 
ality. Besides, they disclose the various mental 
features only in succession, and the trace left by 
one event is apt to be erased before that of anoth- 
er is communicated. Hence, to give a true picture 
of any character, particularly a great character, 
true, we mean, both in its proportions and vi'uidy 
ness it must often be requisite to forsake the 
straightforward track of narrative, to accumulate, 
either secretly, as historians do in forming their 

34 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

judgment, or avowedly, as poets do in presenting 
theirs, and combine the several impressions which 
the story has produced upon us, — uniting them 
in their proper situation and relative strength to 
establish the true proportion, and accompanying 
them with all the influence of poetry to impart 
the true degree of •vi'vidness. Now, a "metrical 
legend," if it adhere to the actual series of events 
as they occurred, and reject all but the slenderest 
embellishments of fancy, can never effect this. 
Without immense means, it will effect nothing. 
To give us even an approximate likeness of a great 
man, so feeble an implement would need to be 
wielded by an artist no way inferior to Shakes- 
peare himself. The poet must be able, not merely 
to understand the character he is delineating, but 
to enter into it even to the minutest ramifications; 
not merely to estimate his hero, but to transfuse his 
whole being into him — to see with his hero's eyes, 
and feel with his hero's heart. But Miss Baillie's 
talent, we have already said, does not lie here. 
She does not conceive a deep agitated nature very 
fully, or embody her conceptions of it very hap- 
pily; and her success, partial as it is, in this respect, 
depends more on the display of incidents than of 
emotions. Her present system, however, prohibits 
not only the invention of new incidents, but even 
the new arrangement of such as are prescribed; 
and she is thus left to overcome the difficulties of 
her undertaking — great and many in other re- 
spects — by a resource, in the management of which 

35 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

she has never shewn much power, by delineating 
internal feeling without the external movement 
which bespeaks it. The result is such as might have 
been expected. On a first perusal, her "Metrical 
Legends" of exalted characters, disappoint us ex- 
tremely. They give us next to no idea at all of 
the heroes whose characters it is their purpose to 
celebrate; and we throw down the book in a state 
of irritated ennui, declaring it to be tedious and pro- 
saic beyond endurance. On a second perusal, it is 
true, we are again disappointed; we now discover 
much beautiful and spirited poetry sprinkled over 
its barren groundwork; but still we cannot avoid 
feeling, that the main design of the performance 
has failed, and the great powers, we see misdirect- 
ed to accomplish it, are calculated to make us 
judge of it more harshly. 

The first legend in the volume turns upon the 
history of William Wallace, a name dear to every 
lover of freedom, and amply meriting all the celeb- 
rity which poetry can give it. The fate of Wal- 
lace has been singularly hard, both in life and after 
it. The deliverers of Switzerland, Tell and Stauf- 
facher, and all the rest, have had their deeds re- 
corded in the annals of their Country — gratefully 
dwelt upon by historians of other countries, and it 
last depicted on the imperishable canvass, of Schil- 
ler. But in the very period when the tyranny of 
Gessler had called forth the spirit that slumbered 
in the mountain peasants, as stern a spirit was 
roused, by a far more formidable tyrant, as fierce a 

36 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

contest was waging among our own bleak hills, 
and the patriot that guided it had an arm as strong, 
a heart as firm, as the time required. Now mark 
the difference! Tell died beside his own hearth, 
amid affectionate grandchildren; a people blessed 
him, {des Vaterlandes Shutz tend Erreiter); and a 
poet, fitted to appreciate and fathom his manlysoul, 
has embalmed the memory of its worth forever: 
while Wallace, as unblemished after greater trials, 
insulted and betrayed, but never yielding, perished 
on the scaffold far from his native land, and before 
the freedom he had bought for it, was achieved, 
leaving his fame to the charge of a vulgar rhymer. 
Nor since the days of Blind Harry has the case 
been mended. Wallace, slightly mentioned by his- 
torians, though the author of a mighty revolution 
in his country, has become the prey of novelists 
and poetasters. They have made him into a sen- 
timental philosopher, a woe-begone lover, a mere 
"carpet knight." Nay, Metastasio has not scrupled 
to trick him out into a "metre ballad-monger:" 
and Vatla (for the very name is lost), trills forth 
his patriotism and his gallantry in many a quaver, 
as an opera-hero ought, but resembling our own 
rugged, massy, stern, indomitable Wallace wight, 
just about as much as Vauxchall tin-cascade re- 
sembles the falls of Niagara. We wish all this were 
remedied. Why does not the author of Waverly 
bestir himself? He has done a faithful duty to the 
Cavaliers and Covenanters: a higher name than 
any of them is still behind. The Wizard, if he liked, 

37 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

could image back to us the very form and pressure 
of those far off times, the very life and substance 
of the strong and busy spirits that adorned them. 
It would be glorious to behold all this in his magic 
glass and then to say, "It is all our own — and the 
magician too is ours." 

The task, which we have thus presumed to rec- 
ommend to the Great Novelist, and which, in spite 
of all its obstacles, we seriously wish he would un- 
dertake, has not in any measure been forestalled 
by this attempt of Miss Baillie's. Her Wallace is 
a lamentable failure. His exploits are related cer- 
tainly in clear language, and not without gleams of 
poetic imagery here and there, such as the unhap- 
py nature of the plan allowed; but those exploits 
have no union among themselves; they are isolat- 
ed, and point different ways; they do not combine 
to bring out or to strengthen one great effect, and 
Wallace remains as much unknown to us as before. 
We have, in fact, nothing but the ghost of him here. 
He moves about the country— sets fire to the barns 
of Ayr— fights at Stirling— offers to fight at Stan- 
more — refuses at Falkirk — overcomes the Red 
Reaver— is betrayed, and dies very edifyingly. 
Now, all this is excellent, but nothing to the point 
in view: the hero has still no individuality about 
him; his features are invisible; and if we try to 
grasp him, he proves to be an empty shade. We 
are totd^ frequently and emphatically, that Wallace 
is a very strong person, expert at the broadsword, 
and a great patriot; with many other things which 

38 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

we knew somewhat before, and do not yet know 
better, or see more clearly; but the stern spirit of 
the man, with all its fervid movements, the fiery 
joy of victory, the stubborn resolution of defeat, 
the grandeur of purpose, the unconquerable will, 
his whole heroic nature, are wanting. We see 
none of those living energies that nerved him for 
his task; none of the great thoughts and great de- 
sires, the overshadowings of despondency, the vis- 
ions of generous hope, that chequered and sublimed 
his restless existence. It is impossible to conceive 
how Mrs Wallace could have freed his country, or 
risen to command its armies: he shews no powers 
of such a kind, few powers of any kind, except 
mere physical strength;— his actions are recorded 
in free and expressive language; but his character 
is left to our own inferences, — that is to say, just 
where it was. 

We regret that Miss Baillie should have attempt- 
ed the depicting of Wallace; but above all, that she 
should have attempted it on such a plan. If deliv- 
ered from the invincible obstructions thus volun- 
tarily created, though perhaps she could not have 
given us Wallace in his full majesty, she would at 
least have given us some visible and pleasing out- 
line of him. Her verses, though unequal, are by no 
means destitute of beauty. It is only on contrast- 
ing what is done with what is aimed at, that they 
become disagreeable. The poem contains many 
brilliant similies and fine allusions, it has few faults 
except deficiencies; and, though these are numer- 

39 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

ous, we frequently discover the free step and blithe 
face of Miss Baillie's early muse. If we wished to 
shew this "legend" to be very tame and feeble in 
many places, we should have no difficult task. It 
were easy to produce not a few stanzas of metred 
prose; we could even point out half a page, in 
which there is literally nothing but names, and 
names so unmusical, that prose itself would have 
paused before admitting them. But though not a 
difficult, it would be grating task; and the reader 
will obtain a more agreeable, and a far juster no- 
tion of the general style and merits of the poem 
from such an extract as the following. 
It is the proemium. 

"Insensible to high heroic deeds, 
Is there a spirit clothed in mortal weeds, 

Who at the patriot's moving story 

Devoted to his country's good, 

Devoted to his country's glory, 
Shedding for freemen's rights his generous blood; — 

List'neth not with breath heaved high, 

Quiv'ring nerve, and glistening eye. 
Feeling within a spark of heavenly flame. 
That with the hero's worth may humble kindred claim ? 
If such there be, still let him plod 

On the dull foggy paths of care. 
Nor raise his eyes from the dank sod 
To view creation fair : 

What boots to him the wond'rous works of God ? 
His soul with brutal things has ta'en its earthly lair. 

Come, youths, whose eyes are forward cast, — 

And in the future see the past, — 
The past, as winnow'd in the early nnind 

With husk and prickle left behind ! 

Come; whether under lowland vest. 

Or by the mountain tartan prest, 
40 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

Your gen'rous bosoms heave ; 

Pausing a while in thoughtful rest, 

My legend lay receive. ♦ 

Come, aged sires, who love to tell 
What fields were fought, what deeds were done; 

What things in olden times befell, — 
Those good old times, whose term is run ! 

Come ye, whose manly strength with pride 

Is breasting now the present tide 

Of worldly strife, and cast aside 

A hasty glance at what hath been ! 

Come, courtly dames, in silken sheen, 
And ye, who under thatched roofs abide; 
Yea, ev'n the barefoot child by cottage fire. 
Who doth some shreds of northern lore acquire. 

By the stirr'd embers' scanty light, — 

List to my legend lay of Wallace wight." 

This we conceive to be at least an average speci- 
men of the work. If it contains fewer beautiful 
strokes than some other passages — the battle of 
Stirling, for example — it contains none of their fall- 
ingsoff ; and it gives no idea of the languor and dis- 
appointment resulting from the whole narrative, 
and inseparable from the principles on which it is 
conducted. To shew what we might have had on 
other principles, we need only appeal to the fine 
sketch which follows — excepting, of course, the 
two first stanzas. Wallace is hastening to meet 
the English chiefs assembled in court at Ayr, — ac- 
cording to the plausible but insidious invitation 
which had been sent to all the neighboring barons. 
The bridle of his horse is laid hold of by a friendly 
hand — 

" ' Oh ! go not to the barns of Ayr ! 
'Kindred and friends are murder'd there. 
41 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

'The faithless Southrons, one by one, 
'On them the hangman's task hath [have] done. 
'Oh, turn thy steed, and fearful ruin shun! ' 
He, shudd'ring, heard, with visage pale, 
Which quickly chang'd to wrath's terrific hue ; 
And then apace came sorrow's bursting wail; 
The noble heart could weep that could not quail, 

'My friends, my kinsmen, war-mates bold and true! 
Met ye a villain's end I Oh is it so with you ! ' 

The hero turn'd his chafing steed, 

And to the wild woods bent his speed. 

But not to keep in hiding there, 

Or give his sorrow to despair, 

For the firce tumult in his breast 

To speedy, dreadfuf action press'd. 

And there within a tangled glade, 

List'ning the courser's coming tread, 

"With hearts that shared his ire and grief, 

A faithful band receiv'd their chief. 
In Ayr the guilty Southrons held a feast, 

When that dire day its fearfuf course had run, 
And laid them down their weary limbs to rest 
Where the foul deed was done. 

But ere beneath the cottage thatch 

Cocks had crow'd the second watch ; 

When sleepers breathe in heavy plight, 

Press'd with the visions of the night, 

And spirits, from unhallow'd ground. 

Ascend to walk their silent round : 

When trembles dell or desert heath. 

The witches' orgy dance beneath, — 

To the rous'd warders fearful gaze, 

The Barns of Ayr were in a blaze. 

The dense dun smoke was mounting slow 
And stately, from the flaming wreck below, 
And mantling far aloft in many a volum'd wreath; 
Whilst town and woods, and ocean wide did lye, 
Tinctur'd like glowing furnace-iron beneath 
Its awful canopy. 
42 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

Red mazy sparks soon with the dense smoke blended, 

And far around like fiery sleet descended. 

From the scorch'd and cracking pile 

Fierce burst the glowing flames the while; 

Thro' creviced wall and buttress strong, 

Sweeping the rafter'd roofs along; 

Which, as with sudden crash they fell, 

Their raging fierceness seem'd to quell, 

And for a passing instant spread 

O'er land and sea a lurid shade ; 

Then with increasing brightness, high 

In spiral form, shot to the sky 

With momentary height so grand, 

That chill'd beholders breathless stand. 

Thus rose and fell the flaming surgy flood, 

'Til! fencing around the gulphy light, 

Black, jagg'd and bare, a fearful sight ! 

Like ruin grim of former days, 

Seen 'thwart the broad sun's setting rays. 

The guilty fabric stood. 
And dreadful are the deaths, I ween, 
Which midst that fearful wreck have been. 
The pike and sword, and smoke and fire. 
Have mtnister'd to vengeful ire. 

New-wak'd wretches stood aghast 
To see the fire-flood in their rear 
Close to their breast the pointed spear. 

And in wild horror yell'd their last. 
But what dark figures now emerge 
From the dread gulf and cross the light, 

Appearing on its fearful verge. 
Each like an armed sprite ? 

Whilst one above the rest doth tower, — 

A form of stern gigantic power, 

Whirling from his lofty stand 

The stnold'ring stone or burning brand? 
Those are the leagued for Scotland's native right, 
Whose clashing arms rang Southrons knell, 
When to their fearful work they fell, — 
That form is Wallace wight." 

43 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

The beauties of this description, at once so 
chaste and so expressive, are sufficient to remind 
us that much of what is feeble and faulty in the 
execution of this poem, is to be ascribed to errors 
in the original design, which no powers, however 
great, could have entirely surmounted. In the life 
of Wallace, those original defects are more than 
usually sensible. In that of Christopher Columbus, 
the subject of our second "Legend," they are less 
so; the scenes to be pourtrayed are more vast and 
striking: the events to be recorded are more nu- 
merous; they follow in quicker succession, have 
more of a consentaneous character, and bear more 
upon a single object. In this piece, accordingly, 
our disappointment has been smaller. It is impos- 
sible, indeed, for any one to write a history of 
Columbus, how imperfectly soever, without inter- 
mingling something of poetry with his narrative. 
The character of Columbus, so richly furnished 
with intellectual and moral endowments, his fate, 
and the great things he accomplished, are of them- 
selves poetical. To view him, after long years of 
anxious waiting, at length embarked with his slen- 
der crew, — alone with them upon the wide and 
wasteful deep, which no keel had ever ploughed, 
no human eyes had ever seen before; yet bearing 
fearlessly on, destined to discover a new world, to 
found new empires, and to change the fate of the 
old, — might strike some sparks of feeling from the 
very dullest heart. 

With such advantages inherent in its subject, the 

44 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

"Legend of Columbus" is calculated to afford 
considerable pleasure. It contains some poetical 
sentiment and thought, with much poetical de- 
scription; the story proceeds less tediously/ is 
less broken into fragments; and the sinkings into 
prose are less frequent and alarming. Yet the 
innate perversity of Miss Baillie's plan — which the 
weak points of her genius tend to aggravate, are 
but too apparent here also. Nearly all that is 
historical is prosaic: we have nothing of Columbus 
but what is external; no strong impression of the 
enthusiastic heart and warm imagination, that 
supported him so long and so bravely. If we 
wished to get, — we do not say a true idea, but any 
idea— of his character, it is not to this "metrical 
legend" that we should have recourse. Robert- 
son's prose would answer the purpose infinitely 

^ It may seem inconsistent in us to complain of omissions in 
the narrative. In fact, we wish they had been much more numer- 
ous: but we see no reason why, in such a professed account of 
Columbus's achievements and sufferings, the last and greatest of 
his sufferings, the year of bitterness which he spent in Jamaica, 
after the loss of his ships, (1504,) should not be mentioned at all, — 
or what is worse, mentioned so as to convey a totally false im- 
pression of it. Miss Baillie notices the prediction of the eclipse ; 
but she does not notice the ultimate hostility of the Indians, the 
mutinies of the Spaniards, and the savage conduct of the governor 
of St. Domingo, who not only refused to give any assistance of 
ships or provisions, but accompanied his refusal with inhuman 
mockery. The fatigue, the famine, and the horrors of this year 
quite broke the constitution, and broke the heart of Columbus, 
who died soon after. A letter expressive of extreme agony, and 
said to have been written by him here, may be seen in Edwards' 
History of the West Indies, Vol. I. 

45 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

better. And we do not think there can be a more 
convincing proof of this system being radically 
bad, than the fact — of which an experiment will 
satisfy any one — that Columbus's character, extra- 
ordinary in every sense, and full of the elements 
of poetry as it is, scarcely appears at all in the 
reader's imagination, and is never the primary 
object there. The narrative is not, however, void 
of beauties: and the life of Columbus, though 
itself unheeded, or at least unpoetical, is made the 
platform on which some true poetry is built. The 
following thought is just, and not ill stated, though 
the soul oi imagination is a new entity. 

But hath there lived of mortal mould 
Whose fortunes with his thoughts could hold 
An even race ? Earth's greatest son 
That e'er earned fame, or empire won. 
Hath but fulfill'd, within a narrow scope, 
A stinted portion of his ample hope. 

With heavy sigh and look depress'd. 

The greatest men will some-times hear 
The story of their acts address'd 

To the young stranger's wond'ring ear. 
And check the half-swoln tear. 
Is it or modesty, or pride, 
Which may not open praise abide ? 
No ; read his inward thoughts : they tel! 
His deeds of fame he prizes well. 
But, ah! they in his fancy stand, 
As relics of a blighted band. 
Who, lost to man's approving sight, 
Have perish'd in the gloom of night, 
Ere yet the glorious light of day 
Had glitter'd on their bright array. 
His mightiest feat had once another, 

Of high imagination born, — 
46 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

A loftier and a nobler brother, 

From dear existence torn ; 
And she for those, who are not, steeps 
Her soul in woe, — like Rachel, weeps." 

The moving circumstances of Columbus's first 
voyages are, of course, attended to. There is beau- 
ty in the picture, though not as much as might 
have been. 

"From shore and strait, and gulf and bay, 
The vessels held their daring way, 
Left far behind, in distance thrown, 
All land to Moor or Christian known. 
Left far behind the misty isle. 
Whose fitful shroud, withdrawn the while, 
Shews wood and hill and headland bright, 
To later seamen's wond'ring sight; 
And tide and sea left far behind 
That e'er bore freight of human kind; 
Where ship or bark to shifting gales 
E'er tacked their [her] course or spread their [her] sails. 
Around them lay a boundless main 
In which to hold their silent reign; 
But for the passing current's flow. 
And cleft waves brawling round the prow, 
They might have thought some magic spell 
Had bound them, weary fate ! for ever their to dwell. 

What did this trackless waste supply 
To sooth the mind or please the eye? 
The rising morn thro' dim mist breaking, 
The flicker'd east with purple streaking ; 
The mid-day cloud thro' thin air flying. 
With deeper blue the blue sea dying ; 
Long ridgy waves their white mains rearing, 
And in the broad gleam disappearing ; 
The broaden'd blazing sun declining. 
And western waves like fire-flood shining ; 
The sky's vast dome to darkness given, 
And all the glorious host of heaven. 
47 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

Full oft upon the deck, while other's slept, 

To mark the bearing of each well-known star 

That shone aloft, or on th' horizon far, 
The anxious chief his lonely vigil kept; 
The mournful wind, the hoarse wave breaking near 
The breathing groans of sleep, the plunging lead, 
The steersman's call, and his own stilly tread, 

Are all the sounds of night that reach his ear. 

His darker form stalk'd thro' the sable gloom 

With gestures discomposed and features keen. 
That might not in the face of day be seen. 

Like some unblessed spirit from the tomb. 
Night after night, and day succeeding day 
So pass'd their dull, unvaried time away 
Till hope, the seaman's worship'd queen, had flown 
From every valiant heart but his alone ; 
Where still, by day, enthron'd she held her state 
With sunny look and brow elate." 

A rapid glance is afterwards taken of the new 
world to whicti this voyage led. We need not in- 
sist on its merits. 

Where he, the sea's unwearied, dauntless rover. 
Thro' many a gulph and straight, did first discover 

That continent, whose mighty reach 

From th' utmost frozen north doth stretch 

Ev'n to the frozen south; a land 

Of surface fair and structure grand. 

There, thro' vast regions rivers pour, 
Whose mid-way skiff scarce sees the shore; 
Which, rolling on in lordly pride. 
Give to the main their ample tide; 
And dauntless [?] then, with current strong. 
Impetuous, roaring, bear along, 
And still their sep'rate honours keep. 
In bold contention with the mighty deep. 

There broad-based mountains from the very sight 
Conceal in clouds their vasty height, 
48 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

Whose frozen peaks, a vision rare, 
Above the girdling clouds rear'd far in upper air, 
At times appear, and soothly seem 
To the far distant, up-cast eye. 
Like snowy watch-towers of the sky, — 
Like passing visions of a dream. 

There forests grand of olden birth, 
O'ercanopy the darken'd earth, 
Whose trees, growth of unreckon'd time, 
Rear o'er whole regions far and wide 
A chequer'd dome of lofty pride 

Silent, solemn, and sublime, — 
A pillar'd lab'rinth, in whose trackless gloom, 
Unguided feet might stray till close of mortal doom. 

There grassy plains of verdant green 
Spread far beyond man's ken are seen. 
Whose darker bushy spots that lie 
Strewed o'er the level vast, descry 
Admiring strangers, from the brow 
Of hill or upland steep, and show. 
Like a calm ocean's peaceful isles, 
When morning light thro' rising vapour smiles." 

From the contemplation of those great scenes, 
we are transported to a very different class of ob- 
jects, in the fourth "Legend"— that of Lady Griseld 
Baillie, by far the most successful in the volume. 
This matter-of-fact poetry is here in its proper 
place; its advantages, such as they are, come now 
to be of service. The exploits of a powerful and 
violently agitated mind, if they are intended to in- 
dicate its nature, must be compressed into a nar- 
row space, and made to tell upon us at once with 
their united force, seconded by the poet's interpre- 
tation and display of them. It is from the failure 
in this, owing to the prescribed events being dif- 

49 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

fused over so large a circle, and alloyed with so 
large a portion of the meanness of ordinary life, as 
well as to the want of a capacity to enter fully into 
the spirit of an exalted and strong character, that 
Miss Baillie has not succeeded in conveying to us 
any vivid or even distinct idea of Wallace and 
Columbus. The case is different with her most 
amiable kinswoman. 

— "She of gentler nature, softer, dearer, 

Of daily life the active, kindly cheerer; 

With generous bosom, age, or childhood shielding, 

And in the storms of life, tho' mov'd, unyielding; 

Strength in her gentleness, hope in her sorrow, 

Whose darkest hours some ray of brightness borrow 

From better days to come, whose meek devotion 

Calms every wayward passion's wild commotion; 

In want and suff'ring, soothing, useful, sprightly, 

Bearing the press of evil hap so lightly. 

Till evil's self seems its strong hold betraying 

To the sweet witch'ry of such winsome playing; 

Bold from affection, if by nature fearful, 

With varying brow, sad, tender, anxious, cheerful, — 

This is meet partner for the loftiest mind. 

With crown or helmet grac'd, — yea, this is womankind!" 

The simple doings of such a meek, unambitious 
creature, will speak for themselves; and, if they 
needed an interpreter. Miss Baillie understands 
them well. Besides, they speak with that small, 
still voice, which requires to be often repeated be- 
fore it will be listened to. A being like this is 
not to be described by combining a few of its bold 
and brilliant manifestations. Lady Griseld has 
nothing bold or brilliant in her character, and its 
excellencies must be unfolded by a minute and 

50 



EXALTED CHA RACXi R S_ _ 

patient display=^fthe trying, though retired scenes 
in which she prove9~tbeir_^ower. The particulars 
of her Hfe should be detailed at full length: and the 
problem is to detail them witn tliat sprightliness 
and vivacity which shall gain for them a welcome 
admission, and prevent their littleness from weary- 
ing our attention and dissipating our sympathies. 

It is another circumstance in favour of this Le- 
gend, that, no expectations being previously enter- 
tained with regard to its heroine, her modest worth 
comes upon us with all the advantages of surprise. 
Lady Griseld's character and very existence are 
now for the first time presented to our thoughts. 
Her name does not, like that of Wallace or Colum- 
bus, occupy a large extent in our imaginations, and 
awaken the idea of something magnificent and 
vast whenever it is pronounced. She is not men- 
tioned in history, nor would she make a figure 
there. The "dear and helpful child" of Sir Patrick 
Hume might watch over her father, when tyranny 
compelled him to hide in the burial-vault of his 
ancestors; she might accompany her parents when 
the same tyranny compelled them to take shelter 
with their family in a foreign country; her affec- 
tionate, cheerful, unwearied efforts might sweeten 
their exile; in due time she might be united to her 
early friend, (the younger Jerviswood,) and as a 
wife and mother become no less exemplary than 
she had been as a daughter — and still continued 
even when a widow: but, though her quiet virtues 
gave happiness or solace to all connected with 

51 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

her, they are not of a kind which historians love 
to dwell upon. 

In every point of view, then, Lady Griseld was 
the fittest subject for this species of legend. Her 
actions were full of lowly beauty; they required to 
be developed minutely, that their beauty might be 
demonstrated, and to be decorated with all the 
graceful drapery of fancy, that it might be attract- 
ive. And what is more important still, her mind 
and the situations in which she was called upon to 
act, were at once familiar to the every-day thoughts 
of Miss Baillie, and such as afforded room for em- 
ploying the most valuable and uncontested facul- 
ties of her genius. Lady Griseld, accordingly, is 
quite a lovely person. She does not of course, pre- 
tend to be an epic heroine, to sway over us by the 
potency and dazzling attributes of her character 
and actions: but she is something fully as good, 
and far more difficult for any but a true poet to 
pourtray with interest and yet without exaggera- 
tion. A calm unprofessing benefactress, she is 
busied about humble things, which pass without 
notice in the world's turmoil: but her simple life is 
described so gracefully; she has withal such an 
elastic, though silent strength of feeling, such a 
generous forgetfulness of self; there is such a heav- 
enly innocence of soul, pervading and beautifying 
the earthly duties, to which she bends unwearied- 
ly; she appears so saint-like, and yet so warm and 
cheerful, and "studious of household good;" her 
character throughout is so emphatically simplex 

52 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

munditiis, that no one can regard her without an 
affectionate admiration. There is scarcely any- 
thing more amiable in romance; and the thought, 
that it is all real, occurs most opportunely to con- 
firm and sanction our dehght. 

We dare not venture upon a more detailed ac- 
count of her life ; our coarse attempt would but 
spoil it; and therefore we more earnestly exhort 
all our readers to study Lady Griseld for them- 
selves, and spare us that unthankful labour. They 
will find her as winning as we have said; and de- 
scribed in this "Legend" with a gentle ardour, an 
unconscious dignity, a sedulous faithfulness, befit- 
ting her character, and of kindred to it. All this is, 
no doubt, far enough from having any connexion 
with that sublime species of poetry, which gains 
its end by inflaming our hearts or expanding our 
imaginations; but it is an exquisite specimen of 
that humbler species, which seeks to enliven our 
kindly sympathies, and brighten the scenery of our 
common existence. The style both of language 
and of versification is well adapted to the style of 
thought. Miss Baillie's language has always many 
good qualities, particularly in the present volume. 
It is never inflated; it has often a careless elegance, 
and at times a shrewd expressiveness, to which 
few living authors have attained. But in the case 
before us, there is joined with those beauties a cer- 
tain airy carriage, a witching coquetry, if we may 
speak so, which it is as impossible to resist as to 
describe. 

53 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF 

Our readers will naturally call for a sample of 
those various and vaunted excellencies — outward 
as well as substantial; and none that we can select 
will convey any adequate impression. The follow- 
ing is all we are able to afford: it contains but a 
few simple flowers out of a most fragrant and 
healthful garden. Sir Patrick Hume has fled to 
Holland, (for his share in Monmouth's invasion,) 
and is living there with his family — poor, but com- 
forted in the hope of better times. 

"And well, with ready hand and heart, 
Each task of toilsome duty taking 

Did one dear inmate play her part, 
The last asleep, the earliest waking. 

Her hands each nightly couch prepared. 

And frugal meal on which they fared ; 

Unfolding spread the servet white, 

And deck'd the board with tankard bright. 

Thro' fretted hose and garment rent, 

Her tiny needle deftly went, 

Till hateful penury, so graced, 

Was scarcely in their dwelling traced. 

With rev'rence to the old she clung, 

With sweet affection to the young. 

To her was crabbed lesson said, 

To her the sly petition made. 

To her was told each petty care; 

By her was lisp'd the tardy prayer. 

What time the urchin, half undrest 

And half asleep was put to rest. 

There is a sight all hearts beguiling, — 
A youthful mother to her infant smiling. 
Who, [which,] with spread arms and dancing feet, 
And cooing voice returns its answer sweet. 
Who does not love to see the grandame mild. 
Lesson with yearning looks the list'ning child? 
54 



EXALTED CHARACTERS 

But 'tis a thing of saintlier nature, 

Amidst her friends of pigmy stature, 

To see the maid in youth's fair bloom, 

A guardian sister's charge assume, " 

And, like a touch of angels' bliss, 

Receive from each its grateful kiss. — 
To see them when their hour of love is past, 

Aside their grave demeanor cast. 

With her in mimic war they wrestle; 

Beneath her twisted robe they nestle ; 

Upon her glowing cheek they revel, 

Low bended to their tiny level; 

While oft, her lovely neck bestriding 

Crows some arch imp, like huntsman riding. 
This is a sight the coldest heart may feel, — 
To make down rugged cheeks the kindly tear to steal. 

But when the toilsome sun was set. 
And ev'ning groups together met, 
(For other strangers shelter'd there 
Would seek with them to lighten care,) 
Her feet still in the dance mov'd lightest. 
Her eye with merry glance beam'd brightest, 
Her braided locks were coil'd the neatest, 
Her carol song was trilled the sweetest; 
And round the fire, in winter cold 
No archer tale than hers was told." 

We meant to say a few words in favour of the 
" Elder Tree" and " Malcom's Heir," two of the bal- 
lads which conclude this volume. But it is impos- 
sible now; nor is it necessary: we can part in kind- 
ness with Miss Baillie here as well as elsewhere; 
and we wish to part in kindness with one whom 
we love so much. For though we have censured 
freely, it has been more in sorrow than in anger; 
in sorrow to see such efforts wasted on a task 
which no human powers could fully accomplish. 

55 



METRICAL LEGENDS OF EXALTED CHARACTERS 

We never distrusted Miss Baillie's talents, and the 
present volume has raised them in our esteem. It 
is only her mode of employing them that we con- 
demn. If she can find any more Lady Griselds, it 
will be well: but we would advise her to be cau- 
tious in future of meddling with such persons as 
Wallace, or Columbus, — and above all, of treating 
them by way of "Metrical Legends." 



56 



FAUSTUS 



FAUSTUS' 

[Neiv Edinburgh Re'vieiu, April, 1822] 

The title page of this work excites expectations 
which the work itself is very little calculated to 
fulfil. It is no translation of Faust; but merely a 
pretty full description of its various scenes, inter- 
spersed at frequent intervals with extracts of con- 
siderable length, rendered into clear and very fee- 
ble blank verse, — generally without great violence 
to the meaning of the original, or any attempt to 
imitate the matchless beauties of its diction; — the 
whole intended mainly to accompany a series 
of plates illustrative of Faust, which have lately 
been engraved by M. Moses from the drawings of 
Retsch, a German artist. 

"The slight analysis, drawn up as an accompani- 
"ment to Retsch's Outlines, being out of print, the 
"publishers felt desirous to supply its place with a 
"more careful abstract of Faust, which, while it 
"served as a book of reference and explanation 
"for the use of the purchasers of the plates, might 
"also possess some claims to interest the general 
"reader. With this view," &c. 

^ Faustus: from the German of Goethe. 8vo. London, I82I. 
59 



FAUSTUS 

"We entertain no prejudice whatever against this 
"more careful abstract." It seems to be a solid in- 
offensive undertaking, founded on the immutable 
principles of profit and loss, and is accomplished 
quite as well as could have been expected. But 
we have felt mortified at seeing the bright aerial 
creations of Goethe metamorphosed into such a 
stagnant, vapid caput moriaum: and we cannot 
forbear to caution our readers against forming 
any judgment of that great foreigner from his rep- 
resentative; or imagining that "Faustus" affords 
even the faintest idea of the celebrated drama, the 
name of which it bears. An avowedly prose trans- 
lation of the passages selected, would have been 
less unjust to all parties. It would have enabled 
the author to express the sense of his original with 
equal gracefulness, and far more precision, with- 
out inviting such of his readers as know the genu- 
ine Faust to institute comparisons so distressing, — 
or leading such of them as do not know it — to 
form so erroneous an estimate of its merits. Ac- 
cording to this plan, it seems impossible that any 
stanza like the following, — 

"Bin ich der Fliichtling nicht, der Unbehauste? 
Der Unmensch ohne Zweck und Ruh? 
Der wie ein Wassersturz von Pels zu Felsen brauste, 
Begierig wuthend nach dem Abgrund zu,"^ 

^ This simile is fast degenerating into what Voltaire called un 
Suisse, — a simile ready to move at any one's bidding. We have 
met with it repeatedly of late, both in poetry and prose, — Manfred, 
Anastasius, The Apostate, — not to speak of others. Byron and 
Hope spin it into a fine allegory, each in his own fashion : Mr. 

60 



FAUSTUS 
could have been transformed so miserably as into 

— "Oh! am I not — 
The fugitive — the houseless wanderer — 
The wild barbarian without an object} 
Or like a cataract that from rock to rock 
With eager fury leaps heralding ruin!" 

Poetical license, and the trammels of verse, are 
all that can be pleaded in extenuation of this and 
a thousand such unhappy failures. There are 
others for which an humbler plea must serve. 
"/for' auf mii deinem Gram zu spielen/' the au- 
thor knows full well, cannot mean, "O! learn to 
dally with your misery:" nor on reconsidering the 
matter, will he fail to discover that **alle sechs 
Ta^ewer^" signifies the universe, not — "a whole 
week's business;" or that — 

"Und dann die hohe Intuition 

Ich darf niht — sagen wie — zu schliessen" — 

cannot be translated by 

— "And then the high 
The wond'rous intuition ? — I dare not 
Proceed." 

If such inaccuracies as these had been avoided; 
if the book had borne a humbler title, and been 
sober prose in shape, as it is in substance, — though 
it could not have interested it would not have of- 
fended "the general reader;" and purchasers of 
Retsch's outlines would have taken it with them 

Sheil, by introducing frost into his cataract, has contrived to il- 
lustrate very forcibly some doctrines of Martinus Scriblerus on the 
Art of Sinking. Du sublime au ridicule il n 'y a. qu' un pas. 

61 



FAUSTUS 

not the less, — which is nearly all the circulation 
it has any right or chance ever to obtain under 
any form. 

Perhaps we are too severe on this slender per- 
formance: but the sight of it renewed our wish to 
see Faust in an English dress; while the perusal of 
it mocked all such anticipations. A suitable ver- 
sion of Faust would be a rich addition to our liter- 
ature; but the difficulties which stand in the way 
of such an undertaking amount to almost an ab- 
solute veto. The merits of a good translation, es- 
pecially in poetry, always bear some kindred, 
though humble, relation to those of the original; 
and in the case before us, that relation approaches 
more nearly to equality than in any other we 
know of. 

To exhibit in a different tongue any tolerable 
copy of the external graces of this drama, — the 
marvellous felicity of its language, and the ever- 
varying, ever-expressive rhythm of its verse, would 
demand the exercize of all that is rarest and most 
valuable in a poet's art; while the requisite famili- 
arity with such thoughts and feelings as it em- 
bodies, could not exist but in conjunction with 
nearly all that is rarest and most valuable in a 
poet's genius. A person so qualified is much more 
likely to write tragedies of his own, than to trans- 
late those of others: and thus Faust, we are afraid 
must ever continue in many respects a sealed book 
to the mere English reader. 

Certainly, it is not with the hope of doing much 

62 



FAUSTUS 

to open it that ive have taken up the subject. But 
if we can succeed in describing — though we can- 
not pretend to exhibit — any of the characteristic 
features of a work so generally famous, our efforts 
will not perhaps prove unacceptable to many who 
know it only by name: and for ourselves, Faust is 
so great a favorite with us, that a few hours can 
scarcely be spent more agreeably than in lingering 
amid the endless labyrinths of thought, to which a 
fresh perusal of it never fails to introduce us. 

Goethe is likely to figure in after ages, as one of 
the most remarkable characters of his time; and 
posterity will derive from this tragedy their most 
lively impressions, both of his peculiar excellencies 
and defects. Faust was conceived while its author 
was passing from youth to settled manhood, — a 
period of inquietude in every life, — frequently, as 
in his case, of a darkness and despondency but too 
well suited to furnish ideas for such a work. It 
was executed when long culture and varied expe- 
rience had ripened his powers; and under a splen- 
dour of reputation, which admitted the most con- 
fident, even careless exertion of them: its object is 
to delineate whatever is wildest and most myste- 
rious in the heart and the intellect of man; and its 
chief materials are drawn from the heart and the 
intellect of the writer. In perusing it, accordingly, 
we seem to behold the troubled chaos of his own 
early woes, and doubts, and wanderings, — illumi- 
nated in part, and reduced to form, by succeeding 
speculations of a calmer nature, — and pourtrayed 

63 



FAUSTUS 

by a finished master, in all its original vividness, 
without its original disorder. In studying the 
scenes of Faust, we incessantly discover marks of 
that singular union of enthusiasm with derision; of 
volatility with strength and fervour; of impetuous 
passion, now breaking out in fiery indignation, 
now in melting tenderness, now in withering sar- 
casm, with an overflowing gaiety, not only sport- 
ive and full of the richest humour, but grotesque 
to the very borders of absurdity, or beyond them, 
— which appears to belong exclusively to Goethe. 
In Faust too, we trace the subtle and restless un- 
derstanding, which, at one period or another of its 
history, has penetrated into almost every subject 
of human thought; the sparkling fancy, and, as a 
necessary consequence, the boundless command 
of language and allusion — to clothe and illustrate, 
as if by enchantment, all the conceptions of a 
most capricious, though lofty and powerful imag- 
ination. 

Qualities so exquisite have long placed Goethe 
at the head of German poets; and given him a 
kind of literary autocracy in his own country, to 
which nothing with us bears any resemblance. 
Unlimited power is said to injure the possessor of 
it; and here, as in more important instances, it has 
produced its natural effect. Goethe has suffered, 
as well as profited, by the want of criticism; and 
traces of his having written for a much too indul- 
gent public, are visible in Faust no less than traces 
of his wonderful genius. There is a want of unity 

64 



FAUSTUS 

in the general plan of the work, and there are nu- 
merous sins against taste in the execution of it. 
We do not allude to any of the three superannuat- 
ed unities of Aristotle, or the French school: but 
there is not in Faust that unity of interest, which 
we are taught to expect in every work of fiction. 
The end has too slight a connection with the be- 
ginning, the parts with each other: and the gen- 
eral effect is more than once entirely suspended by 
the insertion of certain incoherent scenes, which 
it would not be easy to admire anywhere; and no- 
where — it might seem at first view — more diffi- 
cult than here. They resemble the disjecta mem." 
bra of wit and satire, much more than wit and 
satire themselves; and though not without some 
gleams of meaning independently of the local and 
ephemeral topics to which they refer, they are 
given out in so raw a state of preparation as 
would undoubtedly expose them to very brief and 
harsh treatment from any critic but a German one. 
It were unfair, however, to deny that this strange 
mixture of pathos, and horror, and drollery, ac- 
quires, on reflection, a secondary beauty, sufficient 
to cancel much of its original rudeness and appar- 
ent incongruity. Faust is not constructed on the 
common dramatic principles, or at all adapted for 
theatrical representation. It seems to aim at hold- 
ing up not only a picture of the fortunes and feel- 
ings of a single character, or group of characters; 
but at the same time, a vague emblem of the 
great vortex of human life; and in this point of 

65 



FAUSTUS 

view, its heterogeneous composition and abrupt 
variations, even its occasional extravagance, have 
a subordinate propriety, as significant of the vast, 
and confused, and ever-changing object, which the 
whole in some degree is meant to shadow forth. 

The "Tragical History of Doctor Faustus," by 
Marlow, is grounded on the same tradition with 
this play of Goethe's; but the two pieces have little 
else in common. The genius of Marlow was of a 
kind very dissimilar and very inferior to that of 
Goethe; and the structure and plan of his "Tragi- 
cal History" point to an age with many of whose 
feelings and opinions we are fast losing all sympa- 
thy. Marlow's play derives its chief interest from 
delineating the gloomy and mysterious connection 
of man with the world of spirits: and presupposes 
a certain degree of belief in magic and apparitions. 
He has, in fact, done little more than cast into a 
dramatic form the story of the "Devil and Doctor 
Faustus," which used so powerfully to harrow up 
the soul in the childhood of our grandfathers, and 
which still produces a pleasing, though far milder 
effect, on the more sceptical urchins of the present 
age. The characters are not more happily im- 
agined, than the incidents which are intended to 
display them. His demon is a paltering rueful cra- 
ven, whom we feel much readier to pity and de- 
spise, than to hate or fear. Faustus himself has few 
qualities to interest us. He is animated indeed by 
a boundless thirst for power and pleasure; but it 
is power and pleasure of the lowest sort that he 

66 



FAUSTUS 

covets. His anticipated delights are corporeal ; and 
he longs for the pomp and circumstance of author- 
ity,— scarcely at all for the bold energies which 
serve to earn it, and as exercising which, it is 
alone, or chiefly valuable, to a high mind. He 
hopes that 

"As Indian moors obey their Spanish lords, 

So shall the spirits of every element 

Be always serviceable to us three: 

Like lions shall they guard us when we please, 

Like Almain Ritters with their horsemen's staves, 

Or Lapland giants trotting by our sides. 

Sometimes like women or unwedded maids. 

Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows 

Than have the white breasts of the Queen of love." 

It is less the uncertainty of human knowledge, 
than the limited emoluments of a "Wittenberg 
Professorship, that disgusts him; and he concludes 
a mad bargain with the devil, bartering his ever- 
lasting happiness against four and twenty years of 
sensual enjoyment, and of vulgar power; which 
he uses in a way worthy of the bargain, — in play- 
ing conjuror's tricks to irritate the Pope or amuse 
the Emperor, in cheating jockies, and eating loads 
of hay; and when the hour is come, he falls pros- 
trate before his fate, with a frantic terror analo- 
gous to the brutal insolence with which he had 
spent the days of his prosperity. Marlow's work 
is not without some touches of the sublime, and 
many passages of a luxurious beauty; but it never 
could affect the reader deeply, as a whole, and its 
power of so affecting him is lessening daily. 

67 



FAUSTUS 

Goethe's conception, both of Faust and Mephis- 
tophiles, bears not only far more relation to the 
habits of a refined and intellectual age, but is also 
far more ingenious and poetical in itself. The in- 
troduction of magic is but accessory to the main 
result: it is intended merely to serve as the means 
of illustrating certain feelings, and unfolding cer- 
tain propensities, which exist in the mind, inde- 
pendently of magic; and the belief we are required 
to give it is of the most loose and transient nature. 
Indeed if we can only conceive that an assemblage 
like this dramatis personx, so discordant, and so 
strangely related to each other, has been formed 
by any means, the author appears to care little 
whether we believe in it at all; and throughout 
the play, glimmering indications frequently be- 
come visible of the ridicule with which the char- 
acters themselves, whatever they profess in public, 
inwardly regard the whole subject of diablerie in 
all its branches. Nor does Faust's misery, at any 
period of his history, spring from so common a 
source as the dread of his future doom; "this sun 
shines on all his sorrows," and it would hardly al- 
leviate them perceptibly, if the hereafter were to 
be for him an everlasting blank. Mephistophiles, 
too, is a much more curious personage than form- 
erly. "The progress of improvement," as he him- 
self observes, "has been so considerable of late, 
that it has extended even to the devil — the north- 
ern phantom with horns, and tail, and claws, being 
no longer visible upon earth." He is a moral, not 

68 



FAUSTUS 



a physical devil; and the attributes of his character 
harmonize with the rest of the intellectual ma- 
chinery by which Goethe undertakes to work 
upon our feelings. It is machinery of a much finer 
and more complete sort than that employed by 
Mario w; the management of it is infinitely more 
difficult; but the effect which he makes it produce 
is also much more ennobling, and reaches much 
farther into the mysteries of our nature. 

Faust is first presented to our notice, seated at 
his desk, in a narrow Gothic chamber, dimly illu- 
minated by his solitary lamp. Surrounded with 
all the materials of study, he is meditating on the 
vanity and utter worthlessness of all they can lead 
him to. In early life, he has entered upon the 
search of truth with the fearlessness natural to his 
ardent temper, solicited by such an object; spurn- 
ing those consecrated barriers, which, though 
they tend to repress the freedom of thought, often 
serve also to concentrate its exertions, and there- 
by increase its results — he has attempted to pene- 
trate the most secret recesses of physical and 
mental nature: he has now examined all, and no- 
where found one satisfactory conclusion. From 
each keener effort to divine the essence of things, 
his mind has returned back more faint and full of 
doubt: and when philosophy, in all its depart- 
ments, is explored to the utmost limits of human 
research, Faust finds himself as ignorant as at the 
outset. "Words will not satisfy him, and of real ex- 
istences he cannot gain the knowledge. There are 

69 



FAUSTUS 

no first indubitable principles to guide him; and 
still the universe, study it as he may, appears be- 
fore him a dark entangled riddle, the meaning of 
which, if it have any, is impenetrably hid from 
men. Nor is it to kno<zv only that he strives; the 
sensibilities of his heart have been embarked in 
this undertaking as well as the faculties of his in- 
tellect — he would feel as well as understand; and 
he cherishes vague and vehement longings for 
some unspeakable communion with the great 
powers of nature, whose magnificence expands 
his soul, while their mysteriousness confounds 
and repels it. 

Faust's natural and acquired endowments are 
high, but his ideas of excellence are vastly higher. 
All that he can appears as nothing in comparison 
of what — he should; and this enormous dispropor- 
tion between what he is, and what he aims with 
such intense volition to become, forms a never- 
failing source of agitation to his mind. He has 
gifts which would bear him forward triumphantly 
to the acquisition of every thing that man is per- 
mitted to acquire; but all will not satisfy, if he can- 
not overstep the limits with which nature itself 
has circumscribed him. 

Meanwhile, those secluded struggles, in which 
the flower of his days is already spent, have 
estranged him from the cheerful ways of men. 
Immured in his closet, among books and instru- 
ments, and all the dead machinery of art, he has 
long ago forsaken the sunny fields of life; friend- 

70 



FAUSTUS 

ship, and love, and worldly preferment, have alike 
been sacrificed at the shrine of science; and science 
has requited him with vain delusions and baseless 
chimeras. The spirit which longed to mingle with 
the cherubim, and explore the darkest arcana of 
the universe, is shut up within the narrow cell of 
a college, and reduced to conduct a few boys 
through the juggling sophistry of scholastic learn- 
ing. Nor does the magic, to which, in the bitter- 
ness of his disgust, he has devoted himself, avail 
him anything. The beings whom he summons 
from the vasty deep, refuse to admit him to their 
fellowship. He shudders and sinks when the " flam- 
ing countenance" of the spirit of the earth is 
turned towards him, and finds himself too justly re- 
proved for vain glory in imagining that his nature 
could be raised to a level with it. 

Cheated of this forlorn hope, Faust abandons 
himself to utter despair— he has no longer an ob- 
ject upon earth, and still no rest. The sources of 
feeling are changed into sources of self torment; 
the acuteness of his sensibility, and the force of 
his will, serve only to augment his sufferings; his 
superhuman attainments lift him above human 
sympathy; he envies the sluggish happiness of 
those around him, still more than he despises the 
materials of it. His heart is stung to madness, 
when he thinks of what he is, and what he wished 
to be — "an equal of the gods?" exclaims he, "I 
am an equal of the worm, which crawls through 
the dust; which as it lives and feeds upon the 

71 



FAUSTUS 

dust, the traveler's step annihilates and buries." 
In this tumultuous agony, his eye lights on a 
phial of poison, and one lurid ray of joy breaks in 
upon him, as he determines on self-murder. There 
is a stern pathos, a wild grandeur in the feelings 
with which he surveys this undisputed proof of 
human knowledge, this essence of all kind of 
sleepy juices, by which the pangs of humanity are 
to be quieted at once and for ever. The lofty 
hopes of another world dawn upon him, where 
the soul's ethereal essence shall no more be clog- 
ged and cramped by its bodily fetters — where its 
lordly feelings shall no more be blighted and con- 
founded in the low turmoil of earth. The stream 
of life is carrying him nearer and nearer to the 
great ocean; the mirror -wave is glancing at his 
feet ; new day beckons him to brighter shores. He 
knows the fearful risk, but there is no alternative ; 
he must boldly turn his face away from this ter- 
restrial sun, and venture through that pass "around 
whose narrow mouth all hell is flaming," whither- 
soever it may lead. The cup into which he has 
now poured the poison, recalls to memory his fa- 
ther's house, and the festive nights in which a 
different use was made of this old relic. One 
last paroxysm of awakened sympathies! — but he 
dashes them away, and the cup is at his lips. At 
this instant, the choir assembled in the neighbour- 
ing church to celebrate the Easter Festival, com- 
mence their hymn in worship of our Saviour. Its 
simple tones, and the solemn warning which the 

72 



FAUSTUS 

words address to mortals, toiling in this vale of 
tears, arrest the hand of the suicide; the remem- 
brance of many happy days of pious childhood 
breaks through that of the agitated and unhallow- 
ed scenes which have succeeded; his seared and 
tortured heart is melted into natural feeling; "tears 
flow; the earth has back her son." 

But Faust's miseries are suspended only for a 
time. Next day we find him in company with his 
amanuensis, Wagner — a quiet gerund-grinder, a 
collator of manuscripts and speculator on classical 
affairs, "the poorest of all the sons of earth,"— 
whose phlegmatic character and dull pursuits are 
strongly contrasted with the fervid temperament 
and unearthly longings of his master. They wan- 
der about the fields, now covered with lively 
groups of the city population, high and low, come 
out to enjoy the holiday, and make merry accord- 
ing to their respective inclinations. Faust rejoices 
to find himself "a man among men;" but as even- 
ing approaches he falls into his usual reveries; 
pours out his eloquent impassioned aspirations 
over the setting sun; and returns home to solitude 
and gloom as before. The world again appears to 
him a mournful prison-house, in which a thousand 
cares are let loose to prey upon the heart, and 
mock all its higher purposes . He knows not 
whither to turn for comfort or instruction. The 
New Testament occurs to him, and he eagerly de- 
termines to translate it into his native language, 
and study it more attentively than ever. But a 

73 



FAUSTUS 

difficulty stops his progress at the very threshold. 
"In the beginning was the Word" is a statement 
which he cannot comprehend, and no alteration 
he can make on the passage will render it intelli- 
gible to him. 

In the midst of this perplexity, an evil spirit, Me- 
phistophiles, appears to Faust, and counsels him 
to lay aside all such vain speculations, to go forth 
into the world, and enjoy those real pleasures with 
which its votaries are rewarded. With cold mal- 
ice, he leads Faust's imagination to contemplate 
the hopeless barren disquietudes of his actual con- 
dition. Faust admits that he has no hope; that, 
day or night, his anguish never ceases; that exist- 
ence is a burden to him ; and death his only hope. 
"And yet," rejoins the demon, with a spiteful 
apathy worthy of him, "a certain man one night 
did not drink out a certain liquor!" Faust's heart 
is cut by the remembrance of all that he has suf- 
fered, and the anticipation of all that he has yet to 
suffer, — he breaks forth into a bitter and indig- 
nant malediction upon life and everything con- 
nected with it. 

"Wenn aus dem schrecklichen Gewiihle 
Ein suss bekanter Ton mich zog, 
Den Rest von kindlichem Gefuhle 
Mit Anklang froher Zeit betrog: 
So fluch' ich Allem, was der Seele 
Mit Lock- und Gaukelwerk umspannt 
Und sie in diese Trauerhohle 
Mit Blend- und Schmeichelkraften bannt! 
Verslucht voraus die hohe Meinung, 
Womit der Geist sich selbst umfangt! 
74 



FAUSTUS 

Verslucht das Blenden der Erscheinung, 

Die sich an unfre Sinne drankt ! 

Verclucht, was uns in Traumen heuchelt , 

Des Ruhms, der Namensdauer Trug ! • 

Verslucht, was als Besitz uns schmeichelt, 

Als Weib und Kind, als Knecht und Pflug ! 

Verclucht sei Mammon, wenn mit Schatzen 

Er uns zu kiihncn Thaten regt, 

Wenn er zu miissigem Ergetzen 

Die Polster uns zurechte legt! 

Fluch sei dem Balsamsaft der Trauben ! 

Fluch jener hbchsten Liebeshuld ! 

Fluch sei der Hoffnung ! Fluch dem Glauben ! 

Und Fluch vor alien der Gebuld ! "^ 

'We are sorry, that to most of our readers, instead of those beau- 
tiful verses, we have nothing to shew but the following very dim 
and distorted image of them: 

"Tho' from my heart's wild tempest 
A sweet remember'd tone recovered me, 
And all my youth's remaining hopes responded 
With the soft echo of joys long gone by. 
Yet do I curse them all — all — all that captivates 
The soul with juggling witchery, and with false 
And flattering spells into a [this] den of grief 
Lures it, and binds it there. Accursed be 
All the proud thoughts with which man learns to pamper 
His haughty spirit — cursed be those sweet 
Entrancing phantoms which delude our senses — 
Cursed the dreams which lure us to the search 
Of fame and reputation, — cursed all 
Of which we glory in the vain possession. 
Children and wife, and slave and plough — accursed 
Be Mammon, when with rich and glittering heaps 
He tempts us to bold deeds, or when he smooths 
The pillow of inglorious dalliance — 
Accursed be the grape's enticing juice — 
Cursed be love, and hope, and faith — and cursed 
Above all cursed, be the tame dull spirit 
Which bears life's evils patiently." 
75 



FAUSTUS 

The tempter now changes his tone. Having 
worked his victim up to the proper pitch of fierce 
and desperate scorn for all his earthly lot, he pro- 
ceeds to set before him the boundless joys he may 
still secure, by listening to advice and accepting 
assistance from him. Faust hears him — but con- 
temptuously: "How can a wretch find," he asks, 
"comprehend or find enjoyment for the lofty 
mind of man?" Yet if it could be so — if I shall 
ever lie at ease upon this bed of torture; if thy de- 
lusions shall ever once cheat me into self-compla- 
cency, once betray me with enjoyment; if I shall 
ever say to any moment. Linger! thou art sweet!— 
then cast me into fetters, then hurl me down to 
ruin: I shall not refuse to go. The great spirit of 
the earth has spurned me: Nature veils herself 
from my examination: can the future world be 
worse than this? Living here, I am a slave: What 
matters whether thine or whose ? Mephistophiles 
grasps at the offer. The contract is ratified with 
the usual formalities. He is to be Faust's while 
here, Faust is to be his hereafter. 

Except the character of Faust himself, that of 
his new associate is by far the most striking and 
original in the whole of this wonderful drama. 
Mephistophiles is not the common devil of poetry, 
but one much more adapted to his functions. It is 
evident that he was a devil from the first — and 
can be nothing else. He is emphatically "the 
Denyer:" he fears nothing, complains of nothing, 
hopes for nothing. Magnanimity, devotion, affec- 

76 



FAUSTUS 

tion, all that can sweeten or embellish existence, 
he looks upon as childish mummery. His powerful 
intellect enables him to understand all those senti- 
ments and their modes of acting upon men: but 
the idea of them excites no pleasure in his mind; 
and he regards all their manifestations as the most 
weak and ridiculous anility. Pride would be a 
thing too noble for him; yet his servile conduct 
proceeds less from natural sycophancy, than from 
an utter contempt of moral distinctions. He feels 
it no more disgraceful to cringe and fawn, that he 
may avoid the trouble of asserting and command- 
ing, than it would be to go round the base of a 
mountain, that he might avoid the trouble of go- 
ing over its summit; it is the easiest mode of ac- 
complishing his purpose in both cases, and noth- 
ing more. He might be accused of inordinate van- 
ity, but his unfeigned disregard for the approba- 
tion of others gives to his self-esteem a character 
more sinister than that of ordinary vanity. He 
cares for the suffrage of no one — irony is the only 
tone in which he speaks of all things ; and the 
universe itself appears in his eyes little better than 
a huge puppet-show, and its whole history a pal- 
try farce, in which there is nothing to excite any 
feeling but derision from a rational thinker. He 
does not even appear to hate any one very deeply. 
His aim with Faust seems rather that of an ama- 
teur, than of a regular demon: he tempts him 
chiefly as an intellectual recreation. No doubt, his 
motives, like all motives, are mixed; but he seems 

77 



FAUSTUS 

in the course of his operations to display, not so 
much the rancour and envy natural to his profes- 
sion, as a desire purely scientific — a curiosity to 
see how ridiculous the empty dreamer, with all his 
elevations and refinements, his imaginary woes 
and still more imaginary joys, will look at last. In 
many respects Mephistophiles resembles some 
French philosophe of the last century. There is 
the perfection of the intellectual faculties with a 
total absence of the moral; the extreme of fanciful 
pleasantry and acute thought, with the extreme of 
arid selfishness and contemptuous apathy. Upon 
all those passions and emotions which men are 
ennobled by experiencing, he reasons with the 
keen sagacity and easy disdain of the most accom- 
plished cynic. The sciences fare still worse with 
him. Logic, medicine, law, theology, as they pass 
in review before him, are ridiculed till they seem 
hardly even worth despising. His wit, and knowl- 
edge, and gaiety, and humour, are boundless; but 
in his hands they do not illuminate — they con- 
sume. "It is written on his front that he never 
loved a living soul." He cannot pity, or admire, 
or worship — he can only mock. His presence is 
like a moral Harmattan, the "mortifying wind" of 
the desert, under which every green thing is 
parched and dies. 

From the moment when Faust connects himself 
with such a being, his character and conduct be- 
come degraded; we pity him not the less, but much 
of our respect is gone. He seems as if he had 

78 



FAUSTUS 

thrown away the crown of his manhood, which, 
though it galled his brow, was still a crown. He 
has become a slave that he might avoid the duties 
of a king; and the pleasures of a slave are not 
suited to his nature. It was himself still more 
than his circumstances that required change: the 
wildness of his desires still more than the scanti- 
ness of their gratification produced his misery; and 
the vulgar enjoyments of the world may contami- 
nate him more, but will satisfy him even less than 
the high though infatuated struggles he has now 
relinquished. Accordingly, he traverses "the 
bustling inanity of life: food hovers before his 
eager lips; but he begs for nourishment in vain." 
His heart is alternately wounded by the sneers, and 
betrayed by the wiles of the scoffing demon who 
guides him; and he loses his dignity without find- 
ing peace. 

Faust has given up the pursuit of knowledge in 
disgust; but he has not yet become a mere man of 
pleasure. Mephistophiles listens with a smile to 
his vast project of participating in the pains and 
joys of all the human race, and filling his soul with 
human sympathy, since it cannot be filled with 
the perception of truth, and the sympathy of high- 
er natures. All this, according tn Mephistophiles, 
proceeds from the imperfection of his pupil's un- 
derstanding. The search of truth is but like 
"thrashing straw," it leads to no result; and those 
ambitious aspirations serve only to make the fool, 
who entertains them, no better than "a beast 

79 



FAUSTUS 

driven about by an evil spirit within a circle of 
withered heath, while green pastures lie all around 
it." To command the services of others, he thinks 
at least equal to sympathizing with their feelings; 
and therefore, a wise man should plunge into the 
rushing crowd of the week-day world; should 
court power, and the only genuine pleasures, — 
those of sense. 

With such views, the two set out together on 
their travels: they are first transported to a scene 
of boisterous merriment in a Leipsic tavern. The 
rude jollity of the these blackguards appears more 
amusing as depicted in the graphic poetry of 
Goethe, than it would if actually exhibited in Auer" 
baches Keller, It speedily disgusts Faust; and his 
mentor, after entertaining the topers with an in- 
describable song, and at last confounding them by 
some feats of conjuring, conducts him to a witch's 
cave. The purpose of their visit is to have Faust 
restored to youth by the spells of this Hecate: and 
they wait during her absence considering the sin- 
gular furniture of her establishment. 

There is nothing of the sublime in Goethe's 
mode of treating sorcery— scarcely anything of 
the horrible. A kind of solemn absurdity marks 
all his witches; they have not the malevolence us- 
ually imputed to that class of persons; and they 
appear to live on a very friendly footing with their 
master, shewing no wish to quit his service now 
or afterwards. All that distinguishes them from 
common mortals is the extreme absurdity and 

80 



FAUSTUS 

coarseness of their general character, and its adap- 
tation to the peculiarity of their position, midway, 
as it were, between the world of spirits and that of 
men. The latter circumstance also gives them a 
tendency to survey life and human nature, in the 
abstract — to take comprehensive views of things; 
and this tendency, combined with the dimness of 
their intellectual vision, furnishes a copious supply 
of the most ludicrous hallucinations — tinged with 
a slight shade of preternatural horror, which in- 
creases its effect. Perhaps, in the present era, this 
is the best use that can be made of witchcraft. So 
far as we know, it is peculiar to Goethe. 

The return of youth, which Faust greeted as the 
highest blessing, becomes the means of sinking 
him into wretchedness forever; and deeper wretch- 
edness than ever, because it is now mingled with 
remorse. In crossing the street he first beholds 
Margaret; and their earthly fortunes are thence- 
forth indissolubly connected. Margaret possesses 
no qualities to call forth our admiration; yet the 
poet has contrived to make us warmly interested 
in her favour. She is poor and simple — nothing 
but a young artless girl in humble life. Yet the 
meek gracefulness of her nature, her innocence of 
heart, the strength and purity of her first affec- 
tion — when contrasted with the dark fate that im- 
pends over her — excite our pity keenly; and we 
regret that a class of interests so touching in their 
lowly completeness, should have been desolated 
by the intrusion of the wicked and tumultuous pas- 

81 



FAUSTUS 

sions of a world, from which she seemed so far 
withdrawn. Faust her lover, — for he loves her 
truly, and with a fervour originating not in her 
qualities but his own character, — is aware of their 
relative situation. In the delirium of his feelings, 
he does not forget that the innocent creature, who 
views him with such adoration that her whole be- 
ing is, as it were, swallowed up in his, must partici- 
pate in the ruin which overhangs him. He utters 
many a bitter self-reproach, and forms many a 
strenuous resolution to tear himself away. But 
the violence of his attachment still retains him; 
the arts of the fiend — ^whom he despises and hates, 
yet listens to— at length prevail; and poor Marga- 
ret's ruin is completed. 

The succeeding scenes exhibit Margaret in a 
state of anguish gradually darkening to despair. 
She has unwittingly destroyed her mother, — a 
drug intended to be only soporific, having by the 
treachery of Mephistophiles proved a deadly poi- 
son: and Valentine, a brave soldier, her brother, 
and now her only surviving relative, hearing of 
his beloved sister's disgrace, and hastening to 
avenge it, dies by the hand of Faust. Valentine 
appears before us only for a moment, and then 
expires: but the qualities he displays in that mo- 
ment make us regret that we see him no more. 
He reminds us of Shakspeare's Mercutio. He 
speaks, with his dying breath, to his sister, in a 
tone of bitter levity, more cutting than the most 
indignant declamation. Her own heart but too 

82 



FAUSTUS 

well seconds his reproaches. Alone and unpro- 
tected, — her friends all killed by her own hand — 
her seducer fled to escape from justice — and in- 
famy approaching to cover her, — Margaret has 
now no stay on earth. Religion itself, which once 
formed the balm of her life, is now become its 
bane. In the church, where the choir is chanting 
a solemn hymn expressive of the terrors of the last 
day, an evil spirit is represented as standing behind 
Margaret, and, applying the most fearful of the 
denunciations to her; it asks where her mother is? 
where her brother? and pronounces a woe against 
her, because their blood is on her hands. 

Faust and his companion, meantime, are assist- 
ing at a very different scene. They have hastened 
to the Brocken in the Hartz Mountains, where the 
sorcerer's Sabbath, the Walpurgis-night, or night 
of the first of May, is receiving due celebration 
from innumerable witches and wizards of every 
age and rank. It is impossible to convey any idea 
of this extraordinary convention, or of the plan 
which Goethe has taken to depict it. "We behold 
the mountain and the adjacent forests gleaming 
with a faint lugubrious light; and witches in full 
motion towards it from every point — crowding, 
jostling, treading each other under foot — sailing in 
troughs, riding on swine, or broomsticks — and 
capering in all the frantic jollity of their brutish 
carnival. Goethe appears to have aimed at imitat- 
ing in his verse the wild uproar, which it was his 
task to describe. It is the Saturnalia of poetry as 

83 



FAUSTUS 

well as of witchcraft. An intermezzo is repre- 
sented before the infernal audience, on the summit 
of the mountain. Its title is Oberon^s Golden 
Marriage: H treats, like Quevedo's book de om^ 
nibus rebus ei quibusdam aliis. The interlocu- 
tors, who deliver each one verse, are from all 
quarters of the animal, vegetable, astronomical, 
theatrical, and metaphysical world, — scene-shifters 
of Weimar, will-o'-wisps, weathercocks, fairies, 
the Genius of the age, and snuffings of the stars. 
It is "a universal hubbub wild, of stunning sounds 
and voices all confused." Feeble glimpses of 
meaning occur here and there; but the whole 
wavers between sense and utter nothingness, and 
leaves an impression like the first dawnings of 
thoughts in the mind, before they can at all be 
converted into propositions capable of being con- 
tradicted or affirmed. 

Faust mingles in this Satanic revelry more than 
we could wish: yet he soon grows tired of it; and 
we can almost pardon him for having snatched a 
few moments of enjoyment, or at least forgetful- 
ness, from a source however mean, when we re- 
flect that they are the last allotted to him. The 
riotous pastime being ended, he discovers that 
Margaret has been imprisoned for the crimes 
which she committed on his account, and is con- 
demned to die. The agonies of remorse take hold 
of him at the comparison of her recent miseries 
and hard doom, with the wretched fooleries which 
have lately occupied him. But the tempest of his 

84 



FAUSTUS 

feelings moves not Mephistophiles. It is vain for 
Faust to imprecate a thousand curses on ttie head 
of this wicked spirit: the demon listens with pro- 
found composure; the victim is now within his 
toils; and the aid he at last proffers serves only to 
bring on a more torturing catastrophe. Faust is 
furnished with the keys, and conducted to the 
door of the prison, where Margaret is confined, 
while his companion stupifies the jailor, and agrees 
to wait with his phanton-steeds in readiness to 
convey them all, ere morning, out of danger. But 
the efforts of Faust prove fruitless. On exploring 
his way to the cell where Margaret lies confined, 
he discovers that hardship has already crazed her 
brain. She is singing a rude ballad when he enters, 
and mistakes him for her executioner. Few sit- 
uations can be conceived more excruciating than 
Faust's. Before him are the ruins of that young 
mind whose innocence he has destroyed, whose 
world, just opening, with enchantments of which 
experience had not yet proved the vanity, he has 
changed into a waste howling wilderness; and his 
last hope of saving her even from an ignominous 
and painful death is rendered vain. He conjures her 
to fly, and he will yet love her and watch over her: 
but his words suggest no definite idea to her mind; 
the power of thought is gone, while that of feeling 
subsists in more than its original strength; the 
wrecks of memory are confusedly mingled with 
abrupt sensations of the present, and hurried an- 
ticipations of the future, and over all is heard the 

85 



FAUSTUS 

wail of blind and degraded woe, more piercing be- 
cause it is blind and degraded — without claims to 
respect or hope of remedy. Goethe has pictured 
the insanity of Margaret with an almost frightful 
air of reality. There is a tinge of coarseness inter- 
mingled with the wild expression of her distracted 
feelings: it is not the insanity of poetry, but that of 
life. She recognizes her lover; and her first senti- 
ment is a burst of joy: but her perceptions have no 
permanency; she replies to his renewed and more 
earnest supplications for departure, with a "Whith- 
er? — without is the grave" — she alludes to her 
murdered child, which she calls upon him to make 
haste and save; wishes she were past the hill where 
her mother sits wagging her old grey head, which 
is heavy with sleep; tells affectingly, how she her- 
self would be buried to-morrow,— and relapses 
into dreams which transport her back to the ear- 
lier periods of their intimacy. He begs her, if she 
would not kill him, to come away — "the day is 
dawning; — Day!" she exclaims, "yes, it is day — 
the last day is dawning; it should have been my 
wedding day! Tell no one that you have been 
with Margaret — Alas! for my garland — it is gone! 
We shall see each other again; but not at the 
dance. The mob is rushing, yet I hear them not — 
the square, the streets, are crowded with them; 
they hurry me to the block — how they bind and 
tie me! — the bell is tolling — the judgment-wand is 
broken, every neck shrinks as the axe severs mine. 
The world lies dumb as the grave!" Mephisto- 

86 



FAUSTUS 

philes appears at the door to chide their "useless 
lingering and prating" — his horses shiver in the 
morning breeze, he will wait no longer. Margaret 
shrieks at sight of him; she fervently appeals to 
the judgment of heaven; and prefers death and the 
loss of her last earthly friend to being where he 
has any power. The demon observes that "she is 
judged;" a voice from above, adds, that "she is 
saved." Mephistophiles calls Faust to him and 
departs; the voice of Margaret is heard from with- 
in crying after the latter — but in vain — their earthly 
history is done, their lots are divided, they meet 
no more. 

The work, of which we have traced this brief 
and imperfect sketch, is undoubtedly one of the 
most singular that have ever appeared in Europe. 
We scarcely know under what class to arrange it, 
or how to mark out its rank in the scale of literary 
dignity. As a mere drama, its faults are many; 
and its beauties, though of a high order, are not of 
the highest. There is not plot sufficient to create 
dramatic interest; and though many scenes are of 
great power, and many situations of high tragical 
effect, they hang too loosely together to consti- 
tute a perfect work of this class. Perhaps the 
most striking peculiarity of the whole perform- 
ance is the wonderful versatility of talent which 
it implies. To group together the wicked scorn- 
ful malignity of Mephistophiles with the pastoral 
innocence of Margaret, the chaotic gaiety of the 
Brocken, and the impetuous enthusiasm of Faust, 

87 



FAUSTUS 

was a task which few could have meditated, and 
none but Goethe could have accomplished. It pre- 
supposes a union of poetical and philosophical 
powers, such as have rarely met together in the 
history of mind. 

It is to the character of Faust, however, as dis- 
played in the opening scenes of the play, that we 
turn for the highest proof of Goethe's genius. 
They give us the most vivid picture we have ever 
seen of a species of mental convulsion, at once in 
the extreme degree moving and difficult to paint. 
It is the destruction of a noble spirit by the force 
of its own thoughts; a suicide of the mind, far more 
tragical than that of the body. Faust interests us 
deeply at first; he is at the utmost pitch of misery, 
and has no feeling of self-accusation; he possesses 
all the grandest attributes of our nature, and has 
meant to use them well. His fault seems but the 
want of wordly wisdom, and the lofty, though un- 
happy constitution of his mind; he has been born 
with the head of a sceptic and the heart of a de- 
votee; in grasping at the sublime, he has lost even 
the useful; when his earthly hopes are all blasted, 
no moral consolation is in store for him; "he has 
not an object, and yet he has not rest." The sleep- 
less agitation, the arid tearless wretchedness, nat- 
ural to a human being so situated, have been 
delineated by Goethe with a beauty and verisimili- 
tude, to which there are few parallels, even in 
easier subjects. An unlimited supply of the finest 
metaphors and most expressive language, com- 



FAUSTUS 

bines with the melody of the verse to make the 
earlier part of Faust one of the richest spots in the 
whole circle of modern poetry. 

Faust and Mephistophiles personify the two pro- 
pensities, as implanted by nature, and modified by 
education — to admire and to despise, to look at 
the world on its poetical or on its prosaic side — 
which by their combination, in different propor- 
tions, give rise to so many varieties of moral 
disposition among men. It is not without reluc- 
tance, that in the play before us, we behold the 
inferior principle triumphant in the end. Faust's 
crimes are many, but his will seems to have had 
little share in them; even after his connection 
with the fiend, he feels virtuously, even nobly, 
though he acts ill; and, when we see Mephisto- 
philes at length succeed in ruining a being so 
greatly his superior in all respects, it seems as if 
the spirit of evil were made victorious over that 
of good, the lower part of man's nature over the 
higher. But if such be our feeling, it is not with 
the poet that we must quarrel. "The soul that 
sinneth, it shall die" is the law of nature as well 
as of revelation; and acts of desperate rashness, 
though without any purpose morally bad in the 
author of them, as they produce fatal consequences 
to the individual or to others, must be punished 
accordingly. Faust's criminality existed long be- 
fore he forsook his retirement, or addicted him- 
self to the converse of spirits; it began when he 
allowed his desires to reach beyond the boundaries 

89 



FAUSTUS 

wherewith nature had circumscribed them, when 
he allowed his mind to wander — even in the 
search of truth^till it doubted the existence of a 
Providence, and the foundation of moral distinc- 
tions. All his subsequent miseries and crimes 
originated in this — at first view, so pardonable a 
transgression; and the concluding lines of Marlow 
may be applied to his conduct and history, with a 
sense more extended than Marlow meant them to 
bear — 

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight; 

And burned is Apollo's laurel bough, 

That some time grew within this learned man; 

Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall, 

Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise 

Only to wonder at forbidden things — 

Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits 

To practice more than heavenly power permits. 

We cannot take leave of Faust, without advert- 
ing to the controversy which has arisen respect- 
ing its connection with Manfred. The charge of 
plagiarism, which Goethe brought forward against 
Byron, some time ago, in a German Journal — and 
still more his mode of bringing it forward — gave 
us pain; we thought it unworthy of Goethe; it 
shews too much of the author, too little of the 
man. Goethe may be at ease about his laurels. It 
has been his fortune to live through a change of 
dynasty in European poetry, and to be himself, 
more than any other, instrumental in causing that 
change. He has created a new literary era in his 
own country; and none will dispute him the glory 

90 



FAUSTUS 

not only of having furnished many scattered ideas 
— but what is far more honorable — much impor- 
tant intellectual training, to every one of the great 
minds, with whose fame all Europe, and particu- 
larly England "rings from side to side." The man 
whose writings served to nourish and direct the 
genius of Sir Waher Scott, — whose Gotz 'von Ber^ 
lichingen paved the way for the poetizing of 
Border Chivalry, and thus prepared, afar off, the 
elements of the Scot's novels, has no need to 
higgle with Byron about even the property of 
Manfred. It is not our business at present to 
enter upon the discussion of the point in dispute. 
A cursory perusal of Faust and Manfred, we 
think, will satisfy any one, that both works stand 
related to each other, — that if Faust had never 
seen the light, neither in all probability would 
Manfred. Yet it does not appear to be apparent, 
but as forerunner, that Faust is related to Manfred. 
The idea of man's connection with the invisible 
world is the same in both; but in Byron it is 
treated solemnly; in Goethe it often furnishes 
matter of laughter. Manfred, too, is not the same 
character with Faust; he is more potent, and 
tragical, less impetuous and passionate, and the 
feeling of remorse is added to that of the uncer- 
tainty of human knowledge. In the management 
of the plot, the two pieces have no similarity, and 
the impressions they leave on the reader are as 
different as possible. Byron is not a copyist, but 
a generous imitator, who rivals what he imitates. 

91 



FAUSTUS 

We have not heard that Goethe has given in any 
claim to a right of property in Don Juan. Perhaps 
he might, with some prospect of success; but the 
advantage of succeeding would be small. Mephis- 
tophiles is unfortunately, not a character very 
difficult to conceive; nor has our countryman 
presented it under a form likely ever to become 
very pleasing, or permanently useful. The Ger- 
man devil is a much shrewder fellow than the 
biographer of Don Juan ; he sneers as keenly and 
as comprehensively; he despises with fully more 
sprightliness and tact; and the taste for physical 
impurity in all its most disgusting shapes, which 
his English rival manifests so strongly, is one of 
the few qualities which the great "Denyer" seems 
to have acted wisely in denying. 



92 



FAUST'S CURSE 



FAUST'S CURSE 

[From Goethe] 

By Thomas Carlyle 

"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," said 
the Corporal, "but it was nothing to this." 

"If, through th' abyss of terror stealing, 

Those touching sounds^ my purpose' stay'd— 

Some lingering touch of childish feeling. 

With voice of merrier times betray'd, — 

I curse the more whate'er environs 

The cheated soul with juggling shows, 

Those heart's allurements, fancy's syrens, 

That bind us to this den of woes. 

A curse on all, one seed that scatters 

Of hope from death or Name to save; 

Of all as earthly Good that flatters, 

As Wife or Child, as Plough or slave; 

A curse on juice of Grapes deceiving, 

On Love's wild thrill of raptures first; 

A curse on Hoping, on Believing, 

And Patience more than all be cursed!" 

'Of the Christmas Hymns from the neighboring church. 
^On Suicide. 

95 



HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION 
OF BURNS 



HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION 
OF BURNS' 

[ ' ' Examiner, ' ' September, 1840.] 

Genius, like murder, "will out." Here is the 
Scottish Ploughman done partly into German 
verse. It is very curious to see the old familiar 
face of the "Peasant Thunder God," as our own 
engravers have a hundred times given it (for want 
of a better and truer to give) reproduced here 
from German copper, with the rugged facsimile, 
Robert Burns, Poet, engraved by Schwerdgeburth 
of Weimar. 

This man wrote in the dialect of obscure peas- 
ants; as a ploughman in the shire of Ayr, as a 
gauger in the little burgh of Dumfries; but he has 
travelled far since then. A polished, almost fas- 
tidious, Goethe is drawn from his artistic height 
to comment lovingly on the fiery son of Nature, 
whom he recognizes for a brother; and Goethe's 
countrymen, we find have produced f oar versions, 
or select versions, of him this summer! 

iLieder und Balladen des Schotten Robert Burns: Ubertragen 
von Heinrich Julius Heintze. (Songs and Ballads of the Scotch- 
man, Robert Burns, translated by Heinrich Julius Heintze) 
Brunswick, George Westermann, I840/ 

99 



LofC. 



HEINTZE'S GERMAN 

So goes it. Let but any son of Adam, in the ob- 
scurest slough of human existence, in the rudest 
dialect of men, utter from the heart of him a gen- 
uine word, — all sons of Adam feel it to ^e genuine, 
and will lay hold of it as the undoubted possession 
of all. Such a word, if it do come from the heart, 
has by and by to go into all hearts; to be repro- 
duced in all corners of the articulate- speaking 
world; till, consciously or unconsciously, all man- 
kind have got the good of it. For indeed, not this 
man or that man, but mankind, is the true owner 
of such a word; — it was spoken from the general 
heart that belongs to us all. 

Whether the Germans mean now to run upon 
Burns, and produce translation on translation 
of him, thick as blackberries, — thick as English 
Faust's, — we cannot say. Four in one summer do 
seem to be enough! But the Germans themselves 
can look to that. What we have to report is 
that there are four: Kaufmann's of Berlin, this of 
Heintze's from Brunswick, — both these reported 
to be good; then two others, names not given, 
which probably are rather bad. We ourselves 
know little of Kaufmann, of the other two nothing 
at all. But this Heintze, in smart blue octavo, 
from "the firm of George Westermann Brauns- 
chweig," — him we will salute with some kind of 
welcome, if merely as the first that has arrived 
here. 

Considering all things, it must be said that Herr 
Heintze has done his task in a decidedly credit- 

100 



TRANSLATION OF BURNS 

able manner. The selection of pieces is good; if 
perhaps not the best. "For a' thaU and a' thai/' 
is not one of the songs chosen; the German lati- 
tude, we suppose, did not well admit it. One could 
have liked to see 

The rank is but the guinea-stamp, 
The man's the gowd for a' that, 

how it would have sounded in German: — but 
perhaps some Schmidt-Phiseldeck would not have 
liked ! 

Heintze in general has seized the grammatical 
sense very correctly; a thing which in translating 
from Ayrshire Scotch cannot always have been 
easy. Neither has the poetical expression entirely 
evaporated, as the risk was: for the most part 
there /5 a kind of poetical expression; if not Burns, 
then something which a German may have taken 
to be Burns's. Herr Heintze himself has clearly 
some music in his head. In one or two instances, 
of singular felicity, we have, as it were, the very 
Burns, with all his graces and rhythms; and always, 
over and above the mere prosaic sense, there is a 
poetic something which afar off resembles Burns. 
We should say in general, that Herr Heintze had 
not always learnt the tune of his song. Burns's 
songs have a tune, so as few or rather as no mod- 
ern songs we know of have. Every thought, every 
turn of phrase, sings itself: the tune modulates it 
all, shapes it as a soul does the body it is to dwell 
in. The tune is always the soul of a song, in this 

lOI 



HEINTZE'S GERMAN 

sense; that is to say, provided the song be a true 
song, and have any soul! As Herr Heintze, it 
would seem, purposes to go on translating Burns, 
let us recommend him to procure Thomson' s 
Collection, or some such musical work; and be- 
fore entering on any song, fill his head and heart 
with the melody of it, and never start till his whole 
mind is singing to it; — the words will then come 
dancing to the right measure, in every syllable of 
them a tune. ' 

'*Green groiu the rashes, 0,"isbut indifferent- 
ly given here: "Griin werden nun die Binsen, O," is 
even grammatically incorrect; the meaning is not 
that the rushes are now becoming green, but that 
they stand habitually in that state: "griin wachst 

' Remembering Carlyle's inability to write rhythmical verse the 
fact that he nevertheless had a keen ear for the 'tune' of rhythm 
is noteworthy. It is likely that he got the hint of this from an 
American correspondent as early as 1838. 

When soliciting Carlyle's permission to dedicate to him the 
translation of Goethe and Schiller's poems the chief translator 
wrote: "I have adopted the principle, in translating these 
poems, of preserving the form [or rhythm] always with the spirit. 
Generally, I have caught the music [or lilt] of the piece, and 
walked with it ringing through me, while I pondered and digested 
the substance, and this way has the literal imitation become 
natural and free." 

Carlyle replied, "Your mood of mind is the right one for the 
translator. The tune of a poem, especially if it be a Goethe's 
poem, is the soul of the whole, round which all, the very thoughts 
no less than the words, shapes and modulates itself. The tune is 
to be got hold of before anything else is got. And yet each lan- 
guage has its genius, its capabilities. Your task is a difficult one. 
For the rest there is no alchemy like good will." — John Sut' 
ti'va.n D^vight. A Biography. 

102 



TRANSLATION OF BURNS 

das Binsenkraut" gives the sense, and would have 
also preserved the tune. However, that is not the 
worst. Rashes, except as a kind of rough rhyme 
for lasses, is of no particular significance; but as 
such a rhyme, the whole song rests on it; and 
Heintze's accordingly is either no song or another. 
A perfect translator would have to find some equiv- 
alent German word signifying this or that, rushes, 
ragweed, watercresses, it matters little, — but rhym^ 
ing to "madchen" (to "weiberchen" were better), 
as this does to "lasses;" otherwise it is not to the 
purpose. 

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes, O; 
Her 'prentice hand she tried on man. 
And then she made the lasses O. 
Green grow the rashes O, &c. 

Perhaps about a half of Herr Heintze's songs are 
decidedly below what he could make them, did 
he know the tune, and stand honestly by it. We 
have met grammatically with no important blunder 
but one ; a very excusable blunder, but of a rather 
sad effect where it stands. In '* Macpherson' s 
Fare<iueir' Herr Heintze has considered that those 
words, "He played a spring, and danced it round 
below the gallows tree," must signify the leap a 
condemned robber gives from the ladder, and his 
dance — alas, too hideous a dance for singing of! 
''Spring'* he did not know to mean dancing^tune, 
which a man plays on his fiddle, dancing to it ; 
and so, of this wild burden, 

103 



HEINTZE'S GERMAN 

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 

Sae dauntingly gaed he; 
He played a spring and danced it round 

Below the gallows tree, 

Herr Heintze has made this altogether horrible 
one, 

So ging er froh und Wohlgemuth, 

Und unerschrocken fort ; 
Ein Sprung — dann tantzt'er in der Luft {Ach Go ft!) 

Am Galgenstamme dort. 

But let us now by way of counterpoise, give 
Heintze's best translation, the best we have fallen 
in with: that of ** Duncan Gra.y/' Readers who 
know, and all song readers and singers might as 
well know, what the jovial, genial humour of the 
original is, will find that it bounds along with little 
less expressiveness in German than in Scotch, 
^^Freit/' indeed, is far inferior as a singing or 
speaking phrase to **<Tvooing o'i;'' but that and 
several other things we must even put up with. 
Hear Heintze: 

Duncan Gray kam her zu frein, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit ! 
Als zu Christnacht wir voll Wein, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Gretchen that gewaltig dick. 
Gab ihm manchen schnoden Blick; 
Duncan fuhr erschreckt zuriick, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 

Duncan bat und Duncan fleht,' 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Sie blieb taub wie Ailsa-Craig, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Duncan seufzt' in Liebesncth, 
Weinte sich die Augen roth, 
104 



TRANSLATION OF BURNS 

Sprach von Strick und Wasscrtod, 
Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit ! 

Zeit und Gliick sind Ebb' und Fluth, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit ! 
Berschmahte Lieb' gar wehe thut. 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Soil ich, sprach er, wie ein Fant 
Sterben, weil sie hirnverbrant? 
Geh sie doch — ins Pfefferland ! 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 

Wie's nun kam, genug's hat Grund, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Sie ward krank — als er gesund. 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Ihren Busen Etwas driickt. 
Bis ein Seufer sie erquickt, 
Und was aus dem Aug' ihr blickt! 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 

Duncan hatt' ein weiches Herz, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Und mit Gretchen war's kein Scherz, 

Ha, ha, die lust'ge Freit! 
Duncan konn't ihr Tod nicht sein, 
Und den Lorn wiegt' Mitleid ein; 
Nun sind froh sie in Berein, 

Ha, ha, die lust 'ge Freit! 

We shall be glad to hear of Herr Heintze's prog- 
ress in this work of translating Burns. Probably 
not more than half his songs are given here; of his 
poems only some three, "To the Daisy," "The 
Mouse," and "Man was made to Mourn," — an 
imperfect sample. To a man meritoriously bent 
on making Burns known to his Countrymen, we 
would recommend, as more decisively legible at 
least, the Letters of Burns, The whole or part of 

105 



HEINTZE'S GERMAN TRANSLATION OF BURNS 

these, intercalated at the due place in the Poets' 
history, would show the Germans a man they 
have not yet seen, and perhaps would like to see. 
Heintze has given a praiseworthy sketch by way 
of Life; but it is hardly Burns yet, or a very for- 
midably diluted Burns. He quotes Lockhart's 
Life, but seems not to have read it well. He has 
not even sufficiently consulted his Goethe. Let 
him read Cunningham, Currie, above all, the Let^ 
ters themselves; and then see what he does see, 
and what he has got to tell his people about that. 
Right good speed to him. 



106 



INDIAN MEAL 



INDIAN MEAL 

It is much to be regretted that no individual of 
the many large classes whose business and interest 
it might seem to be, has yet taken any effective 
steps towards opening to our population the im- 
mense resource of Indian corn as an article of 
food. To all that have well considered it, this 
grain seems likely henceforth to be the staff of 
life for over-crowded Europe; capable not only of 
replacing the deceased potato which has now left 
us, but of infinitely surpassing in usefulness and 
cheapness all that the potato ever was. 

For general attainability, there was no article of 
food ever comparable to it before; a grown man, 
in any part of Europe accessible by sea, can be 
supported on it, at this date, wholesomely, and if 
we understood the business, even agreeably, at 
the rate of little more than a penny a day; — which 
surely is cheap enough. Neither, as the article is 
not grown at home, and can be procured only by 
commerce, need political economists dread new 
'Irish difficulties' from the cheapness of it. Nor 
is there danger, for unlimited periods yet, of its 
becoming dearer: it grows in warm lattitudes of 
the earth, profusely, with the whole impulse of 

109 



INDIAN MEAL 

the sun; can grow over huge tracts and continents 
lying vacant hitherto, festering hitherto as pestif- 
erous jungles, yielding only rattlesnakes and yel- 
low fever: — it is probable, if we were driven to it, 
the planet Earth, sown where fit with Indian corn, 
might produce a million times as much food as it 
now does, or has ever done ! In the single Valley 
of the Mississippi alone, were the rest of the earth 
all lying fallow, there could Indian corn enough 
be grown to support the whole Posterity of Adam 
now alive: let the disconsolate Malthusian fling 
his 'geometrical series' into the corner; assist 
wisely in the 'free trade movement;' and dry up 
his tears. For a thousand years or two, there is 
decidely no danger of our wanting food, if we do 
not want good sense and industry first. In a word, 
this invaluable foreign corn is not calculated, as 
we said, to replace the defunct potato, but to sur- 
pass it a thousand fold in benefit for man: and if 
the death of the potato have been the rneans of 
awakening us to such an immeasurably superior 
resource, we shall, in addition to our sorrowful 
Irish reasons, have many joyful English, European, 
American and universal reasons, to thank Heaven 
that the potato had been so kind as to die ! 

In the meanwhile, though extensively employed 
in the British Islands within these three years, 
Indian corn cannot yet be said to have come into 
use; for only the bungled counterfeit of it is 
hitherto in use; which may be well called not the 
use of Indian corn, but the abuse of it. Govern- 

IIO 



INDIAN MEAL 

ment did indeed, on the first failure of the potato, 
send abroad printed papers about the cooking of 
this article, for the behoof of the poor; and once 
I recollect there circulated in all the newspapers, 
for some weeks, promulgated by some 'Peace 
Missionary,' a set of flowery prophetic recipes for 
making Indian meal into most palatable puddings, 
with 'quarts of cream,' 'six eggs well whipt,' &c., 
— ingredients out of which the British female in- 
tellect used to make tolerable puddings, even 
without Indian meal, and by recipes of its own ! 
These recipes were circulated among the popula- 
tion, — of little or no value, I now find, even as 
recipes; — but in the meanwhile there was this 
fatal omission made, that no Indian meal on fair 
terms, and no good Indian meal on any terms at 
all, was or is yet attainable among us to try by 
any recipe. In that unfortunate condition, I say, 
matters still remain. 

The actual value of Indian meal by retail with a 
free demand, is about one penny per pound; or 
with a poor demand, as was inevitable at first, but 
need not have been necessary long, let us say 
three half-pence a pound. The London shops, 
two years ago, on extensive inquiry, were found 
not to yield any of it under three pence a pound, — 
the price of good wheaten flour; somewhere be- 
tween twice and three times the real cost of 
Indian meal. But farther and worse, all the Indian 
meal so purchasable was found to have a bitter 
fusty taste in it; which, after multiplied experi- 

in 



INDIAN MEAL 

ments, was not eradicable by any cookery, though 
long continued boiling in clear water did abate it 
considerably. Our approved method of cookery 
came at last to be, that of making the meal with 
either hot or cold water into a thick batter, and 
boiling it, tied up in linen cloth or set in a crockery 
shape, for four or sometimes seven hours; — which 
produced a thick handsome-looking pudding, such 
as one might have hoped would prove very elegi- 
ble for eating instead of potatoes along with meat. 
Hope however did not correspond to experience. 
This handsome-looking pudding combined readily 
with any kind of sauce, sweet, spicy, oleaginous; 
but except the old tang of bitterness, it had little 
taste of its own; and along with meat, 'it could,' 
like Charles of Sweden's bread, 'be eaten,' but 
was never good, at best was barely endurable. 

Yet the Americans praised their Indian meal; 
celebrated its sapid excellencies, and in Magazine- 
Novels, as we could see, 'lyrically recognized' 
them. Where could the error lie? This meal, of 
a beautiful golden colour, equably ground into 
fine hard powder, and without speck or admixture 
of any kind, seemed to the sight, to the feel and 
smell, faultless; only to the taste was there this 
ineradicable final bitterness, which in bad samples 
even made the throat smart; and, as the meal 
seemed otherwise tasteless, acquired for it, from 
unpatriotic mockers among us, the name of 'soot- 
and-sawdust meal.' 

American friends at last informed us that the 

112 



INDIAN MEAL 

meal was fusty, spoiled; that Indian meal, espe- 
cially in warm weather, did not keep sweet above 
a few weeks; — that we ought to procure Indian 
corn, and have it ground ourselves. Indian corn 
was accordingly procured; with difficulty from the 
eastern City regions; and with no better result, nay 
with a worse. How old the corn might be we, of 
course, knew only by testimony not beyond sus- 
picion; perhaps it was corn of the second yzdiV in 
bond; but at all events the meal of it too was 
bitter; and the new evil was added of an intoler- 
able mixture of sand; which, on reflection, we 
discovered to proceed from the English millstones; 
the English millstones, too soft for this new sub- 
stance, could not grind it, could only grind them- 
selves and it, and so produce a mixture of meal 
and sand. Soot-and-sawdust meal with the ad- 
dition of brayed flint: there was plainly no stand- 
ing of this. I had to take farewell of this Indian 
meal experiment; my poor patriotic attempt to 
learn eating the new food of mankind, had to 
terminate here. My molendinary resources (as 
you who read my name will laughingly admit) were 
too small; my individual need of meal was small; — 
in fine my stock of patience too was done. 

This being the condition under which Indian 
meal is hitherto known to the British population, 
no wonder they have little love for it, no wonder 
it has got a bad name among them ! ' Soot-and- 
sawdust meal, with an admixture of brayed flint:' 
this is not a thing to fall in love with; nothing but 

113 



INDIAN MEAL 

starvation can well reconcile a man to this. The 
starving Irish paupers, we accordingly find, do but 
eat and curse; complain loudly that their meal is 
unwholesome; that it is bad and bitter; that it is 
this and that; — to all of which there is little heed 
paid, and the official person has to answer with a 
shrug of the shoulders. In the unwholesomeness, 
except perhaps for the defect of boiling, I do not 
at all believe; but as to the bitter uncooked un- 
palatability my evidence is complete. 

Well three days ago I received, direct from the 
barn of an American friend, as it was stored there 
last autumn, a small barrel of Indian corn in the 
natural state; large ears or cobs of Indian corn, 
merely stripped of the loose leaves. On each ear, 
which is of the obelisk shape, about the size of a 
large thick truncated carrot, there are perhaps 
five hundred grains, arranged in close order in 
their eight columns; the colour gold-yellow, or in 
some cases with a flecker of blood-red. These 
grains need to be rubbed off, and ground by some 
rational miller, whose millstones are hard enough 
for the work: that is all the secret of preparing 
them. And here comes the important point. 
This grain, I now for the first time find, is s<weet, 
among the sweetest; with an excellent fine rich 
taste something like that of nuts; indeed it seems 
to me, perhaps from novelty in part, decidely 
sweeter than wheat, or any other grain I have 
ever tasted. So that, it would appear, all our ex- 
periments hitherto on Indian meal have been 

114 



INDIAN MEAL 

vitiated to the heart by a deadly original sin, or 
fundamental falsity to start with; — as if on experi- 
menting on Westphalian ham, all the ham present- 
ed hitherto to us for trial had been — in a rancid 
state. The difference between ham and rancid 
ham M. Soyer well knows, is considerable! This 
is the difference however, this highly considerable 
one, we have had to encounter hitherto in all our 
experiences of Indian meal. Ground by a reason- 
able miller, who grinds it and not his millstones 
along with it, this grain, I can already promise, 
will make excellent, cleanly, wholesome, and pala- 
table eating; and be fit for the cook's art under all 
manner of conditions; ready to combine with 
whatever judicious condiment, and reward what- 
ever wise treatment, he applies to it: and indeed 
on the whole, I should say a more promising 
article could not well be submitted to him, if his 
art is really a useful one. 

These facts, in a time of potato failures, appre- 
hension of want, and occasional fits of wide-spread 
too-authentic want and famine, when M. Soyer 
has to set about concocting miraculously cheap 
soup, and the Government to make enormous 
grants and rates-in-aid, seem to me of a decidedly 
comfortable kind; — well deserving practical in- 
vestigation by the European Soyers, Governments, 
Poor-law Boards, Mendicity Societies, Friends of 
Distressed Needlewomen, and Friends of the Hu- 
man Species, who are gotten sadly in alarm as to 
the 'food prospects,' — and who will have, if they 

115 



INDIAN MEAL 

will clear the entrance, a most extensive harbour 
of refuge. Practical English enterprise, indepen- 
dent of benevolence, might now find, and will by 
and bye have to find, in reference to this foreign 
article of food, an immense development. And 
as for specially benevolent bodies of men, whose 
grand text is 'food prospects,' they, I must declare, 
are wandering in darkness with broad day beside 
them, till they teach us to get Indian meal, such 
as our American cousins get, that we may eat it 
with thanks to Heaven as they do. New food, 
whole continents of food; — and not rancid ham, 
but the actual sound Westphalia ! To this con- 
summation we must come; there is no other har- 
bour of refuge for hungry populations: — but all the 
distressed population fleets and disconsolate Mal- 
thusians of the world may ride there; and surely 
it is great pity the entrance were not cleared a 
little, and a few buoys set up, and soundings taken 
by competent persons. 

C. 

I8th of April, 1849. 



116 



A LETTER TO THE EDITOR 
OF THE TIMES 



A LETTER TO THE EDITOR 
OF THE TIMES 

To the Editor of the Times. 

Sir:— 

The following document, ar.d the proposal or 
appeal now grounded on it, require to be made 
known to the British public, for which object we, 
as the course is apply to the Editor of "The 
Times." 

In the month of May last there was presented to 
Lord Palmerston, as head of Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment, a memorial on behalf of a certain Miss 
Lowe and her sister, which memorial will suffi- 
ciently explain itself, and indicate who the Misses 
Lowe are, to those who read it here: — 

"The undersigned beg respectfully to submit to 
Lord Palmerston a statement of reasons which 
appear to them to constitute, on behalf of the two 
aged surviving daughters of Mauritius Lowe, there- 
in described, a claim to such small yearly pension 
as in your Lordship's judgement may consist with 
other demands for the ensuing year, upon the 
fund appropriate to literature. 

"In Dr. Samuel Johnson's last will is this pas- 

119 



A LETTER TO THE 

sage, — 'I also give and bequeath to my godchildren, 
the son and daughter of Mauritius Lowe, painter, 
each of them £ JOO of my stock in the Three per 
Cent. Consolidated Annuities, to be disposed of 
by and at the discretion of my executors in the 
education or settlement in the world of them my 
said legatees.' 

"The Mauritius Lowe mentioned here, who was 
once a man of great promise in his art, favorably 
know in the Royal Academy and in the world as 
a man of refined manners and real talent and 
worth (though probably with something of morbid 
or over-sensitive in his character), died ten years 
after Johnson without fulfilling the high hopes en- 
tertained of him. The godson, or younger Lowe, 
mentioned in the will, who at one time (J8J0-J3) 
appears to have held some small appointment in 
Barbadoes, creditably to himself, but with loss of 
health — the crown and consummation of other 
losses he had met with — is also long since dead. 
Of these Lowes and their hopes and struggles 
there is now nothing to be said. They are sunk 
under the horizon. Nor can they pretend to have 
any hold of the world's memory except what is 
derived from their father's intimacy with Johnson, 
of which and of Johnson's helpfulness and real 
esteem and affection for the man there are still 
abundant proofs, printed and not printed, beside 
this of the will. 

"But the goddaughter mentioned in the will has 
not yet sunk under the horizon. She still survives 

120 



EDITOR OF THE TIMES 

among us, a highly respectable old person, now in 
the 78th year, with all her faculties about her, liv- 
ing with her younger sister, aged 72, the only 
other remnant of the family, in a house they long 
occupied— No. 5, Minerva place, New Cross, Dept- 
ford — with numerous memorials of Johnson in 
their possession, which vividly bring home to us 
and present us a still living fact, their connection 
with that great man. They have lived there for 
many years in rigorous though not undignified 
poverty, which now, by some unforseen circum- 
stances, theatens to become absolute indigence in 
these their final years. 

"They are gentlewomen in manners; by all evi- 
dence, persons of uniformly unexceptionable con- 
duct; veracity, sense, ingenious propriety, notice- 
able in them both, to a superior degree. The 
elder, especially, must have been a graceful lively 
little woman, something of a beauty in her younger 
days, and by no means wanting for talent. She 
still recollects in a dim but ineffacable manner 
the big, awful figure of Samuel Johnson, to whom 
she was carried shortly before his death, that he 
might lay his hand on her head and give her his 
blessing; her awe and terror very great on the 
occasion. Both sisters are in perfect possession of 
their faculties — the younger only is slightly hard 
of hearing; the elder (on whose head lay Johnson's 
hand) has still a light step, perfectly erect carriage, 
and vivacious memory and intellect. The younger, 
who is of very honest and somewhat sterner 

121 



A LETTER TO THE 

features, appears to be the practical intellect of 
the house, and probably the practical hand. They 
are very poor, but have taken their poverty in a 
quiet, unaffectedly handsome manner, and have 
still hope that, in some way or other, intolerable 
want will not be permitted to overtake them. 
They have an altogether respectable, or, we might 
say (bringing the past and the present into con- 
tact), a touching and venerable air. There, in 
their little parlor at Deptford, is the fir desk 
(capable of being rigorously authenticated as such) 
upon which Samuel Johnson wrote the 'English 
Dictionary;' the best dictionary ever written, say 
some. 

" It is in behalf of these two women, of Johnson's 
goddaughter fallen old and indigent, that we vent- 
ure to solicit from the Government, some small 
public subvention, to screen their last years from 
the worst misery. It may be urged that there is no 
public fund appropriated for such precise objects, 
and that their case cannot, except in a reflex way, 
be brought under the head of 'literary pensions;' 
but, in a reflex way, it surely can; and we humbly 
submit withal, that this case of theirs is, in some 
measure, a peculiar and unique one. 

"Samuel Johnson is such a literary man as prob- 
ably will not appear again in England for a very 
great length of time. His works and his life, 
looked at well, have something in them of heroic, 
which is of value beyond most literature, and 
much beyond all money and money's worth to the 

122 



EDITOR OF THE TIMES 

nation which produced him. That same 'English 
Dictionary,' written on the poor fir desk above 
spoken of, under sternly memorable circumstances, 
is itself a proud possession to the English nation, 
and not in the philological point of view alone. 
Such a dictionary has an architectonic quality in 
it; and for massive solidity of plan, manful correct- 
ness and fidelity of execution, luminous intelli- 
gence, rugged honesty and greatness of mind 
pervading every part of it, is like no other. This, 
too, is a Cathedral of St. Paul's^ after its sort; 
and stands there for long periods, silently remind- 
ing every English soul of much that is very neces- 
sary to remember. 

"Samuel Johnson himself is far beyond the reach 
of our gratitude. He has left no child or repre- 
sentative of any kind to claim pensions or distinc- 
tions from us; and here, by accident, thrown upon 
the waste sea beach, is something venerably human 
with Johnson's mark still legible upon it; Johnson 
as it were, mutely bequeathing it to us, and to 
what humanity and loyalty we have, for the few 
years that may be still be left. Our humble request 
in the name of literature withal, is that the English 
nation will, in some small adequate way, respond 
to this demand of Johnson's. 

[The letter is signed by Henry Hallam, James 
Stephen, S. Oxon, Thomas Carlyle, Alexander 
Dyce, B. W. Proctor, C. L. Eastlake, John Forster, 
T. B. Macaulay, W. M. Thackeray, Alfred Ten- 
nyson, A. W. Fonblanque, Charles Dickens, E. 

123 



A LETTER TO THE 

Bulwer Lytton, G. R. Gleig, Richard Owen, R. E. 
Murchison, B. Disraeli, and H. H. Milman. 

Beyond question the only document in Great 
Britain that out-shines the parchment of Runny- 
mede — in the right light ! ] 

To this memorial his Lordship made answer, 
with great courtesy and without undue delay, 
that the fund set apart for the encouragement of 
literature could not be meddled with for a pension 
to the goddaughter of Johnson; but that, in con- 
sideration of the circumstances, his Lordship, from 
some other fund, had made her a donation of £ JOO, 
which sum of £J00 was accordingly paid to Miss 
Lowe in June last a very welcome gift and help — 
all that the Prime Minister could do in this matter, 
and, unfortunately, only about the fifth part of 
what was, and is, indispensible to get done. 

It was still hoped that the last resource of an 
appeal to the public might be avoided; that there 
might be other Government helps, minute chari- 
table funds, adequate to this small emergency. 
And new endeavours were accordingly made in 
in that direction, and new expectations enter- 
tained; but these likewise have all proved ineffect- 
ual: and the resulting fact now is, that there is 
still needed something like an annuity of £30 for 
the joint lives of these two aged persons; that, 
strictly computing what pittances certain and 
precarious they already have, and what they 
still want, their case cannot be satisfactorily left 
on lower terms— that is to say, about £400, to 

124 



EDITOR OF THE TIMES 

purchase such an annuity, is still needed for them. 

If the thing is half as English as we suppose it to 
be, a small pecuniary result of that kind is not 
doubtful, now when the application is once made. 
At all events, as the English Government is not 
able to do this thing, we are now bound to apprise 
the English nation of it, and to ask the English 
nation in its miscellaneous capacity — Are you 
willing to do it ? 

Messrs. Coutts, bankers, will receive subscrip- 
tions from such as feel that this is a valid call upon 
English beneficence; and we have too much 
reverence for Samuel Johnson, and for the present 
generation of his countrymen, to use any solicit- 
ing or ignoble pressure on the occasion. So soon 
as the requisite amount has come in, the subscrip- 
tions will cease; of which due notice will be given. 

We are, Sir, your obedient servants, 

Thomas Carlyle. 
Charles Dickens. 
John Forster. 

Athenaeum Club, Oct. 31 [1855]. 



125 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

The year of Grace, J820, found Thomas Carlyle 
at Edingburgh, a plucky post-graduate, in the 
twenty-fifth year of his age and with the world 
before him. He had forsworn Pedagogy when 
himself and Edward Irving left 'the lang toun of 
Kircaldy' behind them. Unlike his companion, he 
had also turned his back on the Church— that 
summum bonum of the needy Scotch scholar. He 
was also destined to shake his head at the Law. 
He took humble lodgings at No. 3 Moray Street, 
and sought to earn his sustenance as a private 
teacher of Mathematics. A fortunate introduction 
to David Brewster led that learned quid nunc to 
offer him work in the preparation of the forth- 
coming Edingburgh Encyclopaedia; and thus 
Thomas Carlyle became an 'entered apprentice' 
to Literature. He had found his life-work without 
knowing it ! 

He wrote seventeen articles for his first Task- 
master, and, as Brewster himself alloted the topics, 
one can but wonder, if he foresaw the unfolded 
capabilities of his impecunious scribe — for twelve 

129 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

of these contributions are biographical. But Car- 
lyle then wrote in shackles, being limited to some- 
what meagre space, and he found the work not 
only incongenial, but of niggardly recompense; he 
often makes mention of it in the correspondence 
of those days with something between a groan 
and a curse. He had no previous literary experi- 
ence save as a rather voluminous correspondent 
with schoolday friends, and he had not yet settled 
into a 'style.' Beside his University training, 
which, it must be said, he held but lightly, his 
only qualifications were an unusal store of multi- 
farious reading — for he was ever liberivorous — 
and the higher qualities of industry, self-reliance, 
courage and an indomitable will. It remained to 
be seen what might be the freak of heredity in his 
case; whether he would inherit the paternal apti- 
tude for using words in a singularly forceful man- 
ner; his unlettered father's utterance being said to 
be of such vigor as to "nail things to the wall." 
His first contribution to the Encyclopaedia is 
the article on Montaigne; and it is noteworthy 
that of all who have written of Carlyle, our own 
Lowell is the first who appears to have "sought 
the sources of the Nile." He wrote: "Carlyle, in 
these first Essays, already shows the influence of 
his master, Goethe, the most receptive of all 
critics." At that early period of Carlyle's career 
Goethe could hardly be called an 'influence' inas- 

130 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

much as his fervent Scottish disciple had began 
the study of German only a year before the brief 
essay was written. Lowell continues, "in a com- 
pact notice of Montaigne, there is not a word as 
to his religious scepticism. The character is 
looked at from its human and literary sides." The 
American critic did not read closely or he would 
have found that Carlyle had discerned an insin." 
ceriiy in the Gascon's scepticism; which fact 
clearly proves that Thomas Carlyle's detestation 
of Shams was nascent and by no means the assum- 
ed quality of a later day. 

But let us take a closer look at Carlyle's 'pren- 
tice work. Of the "Gascon gentleman's" Essays 
he writes: 

"In this singular production, Montaigne com- 
pletely fulfils the promise of painting himself in 
his natural and simple mood, without study or 
artifice. And though Scalinger might perhaps 
reasonably ask, 'what matters it whether Mon- 
taigne liked white wine or claret?' — a modern 
reader will not easily cavil at the patient and good- 
natured, though exuberant, egotism which brings 
back to our view the "form and pressure of a time 
long past." The habits and humours; the mode 
of acting and thinking which characterized a Gas- 
con gentleman in the sixteenth century, cannot 
fail to amuse an enquirer of the nineteenth, while 
the faithful delineation of human feelings in all 
their strength and weakness, will serve as a mirror 
to every mind capable of self-examination. But if 

131 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

details, otherwise frivolous, are pardoned, because 
of the antique charm which is about them, no ex- 
cuse or even apology of a satisfactory kind can be 
devised for the gross indelicacy which frequently 
deforms these Essays; and as Montaigne, by an 
abundant store of bold ideas and a deep insight 
into the principles of our common nature, deserves 
to be ranked high among the great men of his own 
original age, he also deserves the bad pre-eminence 
in love at once of coarseness and obscenity. 

"The desultory, careless mode in which the 
materials of the Essays are arranged, indicates a 
feature of the author's character to which his 
style has likewise a resemblance. With him, more 
than with any other, words may be called the 
garment of thought; the expression is frequently 
moulded to fit the idea, never the idea to fit the 
expression. The negligence and occasional ob- 
scurity of his manner are more than compensated 
by the warmth of an imagination, bestowing on 
his language a nervousness and often a pictu- 
resque beauty which we would seek in vain else- 
where." 

One can but surmise whether David Brewster 
ever for a moment turned aside from the scientific 
aridities of the Encyclopaedia to admire the criti- 
cal sagacity of his obscure contributor: neverthe- 
less no truer judgement has ever been written of 
Montaigne than that his 'words may be called the 
garment of thought.' Surely, the spirit of Diogenes 
Teufelsdrockh was a-stirring even then! 

In even his appenticeship Carlyle's eye was keen 

132 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

for the dramatic and he seized upon an incident 
of Montaigne's death-hour: 

"The disorder had deprived him of the use of 
speech; but as his mental faculties remained un- 
impaired, he desired his wife, in writing, to send 
for certain of his neighbors that he might bid 
them farewell. After the arrival of these persons 
mass was said in his chamber. At the elevation of 
the host, Montaigne, with an effort raised himself 
upon his bed, and clasping his hands together, 
expired in that pious attitude. 

"The character of Montaigne is amply delineat- 
ed in his Essays. On contemplating this picture, 
we are surprised to find the principles of a stoic 
incongruously mingled with the practice of an 
epicure; and the pitlo<w of doubt, upon which 
during the flow of health he professed to repose, 
exchanged in sickness for the opiates of supersti- 
tion." 

"There is not a word as to his religious scepti- 
cism," but there is an unmistakable recognition of 
its quality. It is highly probable that Carlyle 
wrote this paper with a keener zest than he found 
in preparing any of the others — but who could 
predict the Lectures on Heroes from such a be- 
ginning ? 

The exigencies of the alphabetical order of ar- 
rangement adopted in the Encyclopaedia de- 
manded from Carlyle the article on Lady Mary 
Worthy Montagu, In it one sees that he was 
restricted to narrow limits, but he nevertheless so 

133 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

manages his materials as to justify Lowell's pro- 
nouncing his work compact. He gives a fair 
bird's-eye view of Lady Mary's varied life, but 
athwart his periods we discern no shadow of the 
facile workman of his riper years. Of her Poems 
he writes awkwardly enough: "They are not pol- 
ished, but across their frequent harshness and 
infelicity of expression we can easily discern con- 
siderable vivacity of conception [it is not difficult 
to believe that she could be vivacious even in 
conceiving], accompanied with some acuteness in 
discriminating character and delineating man- 
ners." How the fastidious De Quincey would have 
scored him for his 'across,' 'vivacity of concep- 
tion,' and like Scotticisms. But Carlyle in sum- 
ming up her distinguishing characteristics says 
very discriminatingly: "She seems to have been 
contented with herself, and therefore willing to be 
pleased with others; and her cheerful sprightly 
imagination, the elegance, the ease, and airness 
of her style are deservedly admired." A more 
felicitous epithet than airiness, in this instance, it 
were difficult to apply; and his general judgement 
of her is clear and just. 

There is no need to exhume the respectable 
mediocrity that is mouldering in the papers on 
Moniesque, and Bernard de Montfaucon; but the 
latter contains a metaphor which is in striking 
contrasy with the perspicuity of Carlyle's matured 

I 34 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

expression: "The character originally impressed 
upon Montfaucon's genius, though obscured, was 
not obliterated." In youth, it appears, Montfau- 
con evinced the qualities that give promise of a 
student's life; in early manhood he took up the 
profession of arms, and only after a seasoning 
period returned to Letters. 

A similar clumsiness is found in the article upon 
Nelson: "The victory at Trafalgar, the greatest 
ever gained, completed the fabric which a succes- 
sion of brave men, since the time of Queen Eliza- 
beth, had been slowly rearing with their toils and 
their — b 1 o o d." It is more than difficult to imagine 
the author of the Life of John Sterling writing 
this. 

The Netherlands^ the longest and ablest of his 
Encyclopaedia work, gives evidence of much 
carefully-digested reading and patient research 
and it well displays Carlyle's capacity for faithful 
toil; but we are concerned only with his style, and 
the following specimen little presages The French 
Revolution: "Posterity have learned, with a kind 
of satisfaction, that in his old age Charles himself 
began to doubt that the spirit which had never 
felt for the fate of another, was doomed in its 
feebleness to experience the blackest terrors for 
its own fate, and to leave the world it had wasted 
and deformed under a 'oj eight of Blood which 
superstition itself could no longer alleviate." 

135 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP . 

The immediately succeeding effort — on Neiv" 
foundtand — contains one faint flicker of that 
humor which was to blaze brightly in his later 
pages: "Mr. Anspach, a clerical person who lived 
in the island several years, and has since written a 
meagre and very confused book which he calls 
a history of it." Incontinently, Carlyle cooly pro- 
ceeds to appropriate eleven lengthy paragraphs 
from the unfortunate 'clerical person's' history. 
Why is it that of all cynics, your clerical recalci- 
trant is ever the severest upon the Cloth ? Carlyle 
never 'wagged hispowin a poupit;' Emerson had. 
Remembering this, Carlyle squirted venom upon 
'the black dragoons' in season and out; Emerson's 
velvet gloves did not hinder the sharp nails from 
occasionally scratching. Was it the Jordan that 
rolled betTveen the unfrocked, the non-frocked, 
and the sacerdotal shrine?^ 

Carlyle must have lingered lovingly over his 
picture of his fellow Scot, Mungo Park, the in- 
trepid traveller. The warmth of his admiration 
must have stirred the germ of the perfervid 'Hero- 
Worship' that was to astonish not only London a 
score of years later on. Carlyle instinctively dis- 
cerned the intrinsic worth in a Man"and was not 
deceived by the meretricious. Of Mungo Park's 

^ " So to the Jews old Canaan stood 

While Jordan rolled between." 

!36 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

Travels the son of the Eclefechan stone-mason 
was moved to declare: 

"We are shocked with the view of such extreme 
wretchedness endured with so little advantage to 
repay it. But the character of Park cannot fail to 
rise in our estimation from perusing it. The same 
qualities of calm intrepidity, strong resolution, and 
unaffected kindliness which his former journey 
had brought to light, are here exhibited under cir- 
cumstances of a deeper and more painful interest; 
and the friends of geographical discovery, while 
they lament the loss of a person every way so 
qualified to have extended its boundaries, will be 
joined by the admirers of human worth in deplor- 
ing the fate of a man whose energetic yet affec- 
tionate character did honor to the country that 
gave him birth 

"Park may be pointed out as one of the most 
unpretending, and at the same time valuable, 
specimens of humanity that embellish the age and 
country in which he lived." 

There is a fervent glow in this that is not to be 
found in any of Carlyle's other contributions to 
the Encyclopaedia, He had written therein upon 
Lord Nelson, who not so long before had died in 
the halo of glory, but his faint and qualified fervor 
is forced; whilst for one who perished miserably 
in the wilds of Africa, resolutely doing his duty, 
he has a tenderness that stops short of the tear 
only for the sake of manful pride. But his eye 
was not undimmed when he read Park's last letter 

137 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

to Lord Camden: "My dear friend Mr. Anderson, 
and likewise Mr. Scott, are both dead; but though 
all the Europeans who are with me should die, 
and though I were myself half dead, I would still 
persevere; and if I could not succeed in the object 
of my journey, I would at least die on the Niger." 

A man with a deathless purpose; him Carlyle 
the hack-writer could revere, and Carlyle 'the 
writer of books,' defend and magnify. This did 
he for the Christian Cromwell and Mohammet 
the Infidel. 

Carlyle's Encyclopaedia task-work was done 
between the years J820-23, and meanwhile the 
budding reputation thereby acquired procured for 
him an engagement as an avowed liiieraieur from 
the editor of the Ne<iv Edinburgh Re<vie<w* "Jo- 
anna Baillie's Metrical Legends" incited, if they 
did not inspire, Carlyle's first spontaneous "re- 
view." 

Six months later and in the same magazine this 
was followed by a decidedly authoritative utterance 
concerning an English publisher's rechauffe of 
Goethe's masterpiece; **Faustus, From the Ger- 
man of Goethe." Carlyle had made his debut; he 
was, to be sure, still a hack-writer, but it was as a 
volunteer, not a conscript. These efforts and his 
work on the Encyclopaedia served to bring the 
young aspirant into notice, and towards the end 
of the year J823 his Life of Schiller ^as being 

138 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

published in The London Magazine, The two 
papers in Waugh's ill-omened Edinburgh Re-viem) 
Carlyle allowed to lie quietly buried in the ob- 
scurity of that speedily-defunct journal; but he 
lived to see the Life of Schiller reproduced in a 
German translation and also in its fifth English 
edition. He spake slightingly of this his first 
"book," but the London Times at once reprinted 
the introduction to Part Second; quickly discern- 
ing a new star in the firmanent of Letters. 

It is a stately opening, but Carlyle had not yet 
found his marvelous voice : 

"If to know wisdom were to practice it; if fame 
brought true dignity and peace of mind; or hap- 
piness consisted in nourishing intellect with ideal 
food, a literary life would be the most enviable 
which the lot of this world affords. But the truth 

is far otherwise Look at the Newgate 

Calendar, it is the most sickening chapter in the 
history of man 

"Talent of any sort is generally accompanied 
with a peculiar fineness of sensibility; of genius this 
is the most essential constituent; and life in any 
shape has sorrows enough for hearts so formed. 
The employments of literature sharpen this natural 
tendency; the vexations that accompany them 
frequently exasperate it into morbid sourness. 
The cares and toils of literature are the business 
of life; its delights are too etherial and too tran- 
sient to furnish that perennial flow of satisfaction, 
coarse, but plenteous and substantial, of which 

139 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

happiness in this world of ours is made. The 
most finished efforts of the mind give it little 
pleasure, frequently they give it pain; for men's 
aims are ever far beyond their strength. And the 
outward recompense of these undertakings, the 
distinctions which they confer, is of still smaller 
value; the desire for it is insatiable even when 
successful; and when baffled, it issues in jealousy 
and envy, and every pitiful and painful feeling. 
So keen a temperament with so little to restrain 
or satisfy, so much to distress or tempt it, produces 
contradictions which few are able to reconcile. 
Hence the unhappiness of literary men, hence 
their faults and follies." 

Did the son of Margaret Carlyle write thus re- 
membering his mother's confession that he was 
"gey ill to live wi'," or was this the 'second 
sight' of genius enabling him to cast his own 
horoscope ? 

Carlyle's next toilful task was the translating of 
"Wilhelm Meister," and for which DeQuincey, 
pouncing with something of jealousy upon sundry 
Scotticisms that stole into the translator's text, 
flayed the young writer in the pages of the very 
London Magazine that conveyed the "Life of 
Schiller" to the Jannie Welsh whom 'oor Tam' 
was then courting with "desperate hope!" Yet 
sixty years later, as great a critic said, "To this 
day — such is the force of youthful associations — 
I read the Wilhetm Meister with more pleasure in 
Carlyle's translation than in the original." 

140 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

The next year found Carlyle hard at work upon 
the four volumes of "German Romance" that 
were finally published, although only after much 
tribulation, in J 827, and which, somewhat singular- 
ly, have never been reprinted in their entirety. 

Now it was that Francis Jeffrey, who had once 
rejected him, admitted Carlyle into the simon- 
pure Edinburgh Revieiv; and thus began that 
series of essays of which Emerson said, in the 
introduction to the first collected edition of them: 
"Many readers will find here pages which, in the 
scattered anonymous sheets of British maga- 
zines, spoke to their youthful minds with an em- 
phasis that hindered them from sleep." 

The first four of these essays were written at 
the Comely Bank residence in Edinburgh; then 
followed his removal in the utter loneliness of 
Craigenputtock where, between July, J828 and 
July, J83J, he wrote fourteen other essays and 
also "Sartor Resartus." At last Carlyle had ended 
his long and weary Lehrjahre; then, with Teu- 
felsdrockh's strange manuscript in his hand he 
started upon his Wa.nderja.hre, 

Three years later he was in Cheyne Row, 
Chelsea, at work on the French Re'voluiion, 

On the seventh of January, J 824, when Carlyle 
had read the extract from his Life of Schiller 
which appeared in the London Times, he jotted 

141 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

in his Journal: "Certainly no one ever wrote with 
such tremendous difficulty as I do. Shall I ever 
learn to write ease?" After ten years of arduous 
apprenticeship he had won a place in the front 
rank of reviewers, but the verdict of the world 
upon a book that had come from the very heart 
of him was yet to be heard. In the solitude of 
Craigenputtock he found not only the Philosophy 
of Clothes; there he also found his authentic 
voice. Before going thither he had written after 
the received models; there he learned to let the 
soul of him speak as his peasant father spoke, 
"nailing things to the wall." Henceforth in the 
world of Literature, it was, undoubtedly "Thomas 
Carlyle, his mark." 

The style is the man; the tricks of Art pale into 
insignificance when the materials Thought are 
fused in the fire of Feeling. Given earnestness, 
insight, vivid imagination, marvelous memory, 
and deep convictions, he who is thus endowed 
will leave the imprint of himself upon his day and 
generation; and all these shining qualities and 
splendid capacities are now known to have been 
Thomas Carlyle's. 

The crowning consummation of his Apprentice- 
ship is the finding of himself, and the mint-mark 
of his fifty years of Mastership is seen in the dis- 
regard for all models, the unfaltering trust in him- 

142 



CARLYLE'S APPRENTICESHIP 

self, and the high courage to be that for which the 

Infinite had made and intended him. 

The example that he has left for every scholar 

is found in the industry that did not loiter, the 

toil that quailed before no task, the devotion to 

principle that never faltered, and the confidence 

in the Eternal Justice that could not be dismayed. 

Such also are the rewards of his Apprenticeship — 

"a possession forever." 

S. A. J. 



JUL 26 1904 



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